Chocolate self-saucing pudding

Nagi Maehashi’s selected chocolate self-saucing pudding bakes a cocoa batter beneath a brown-sugar-and-cocoa topping and hot water. As it cooks, the topping becomes a chocolate sauce beneath a moist, cake-like layer.

Selected light brown sugar and one portion of cocoa are whisked for the topping. In another bowl, flour, baking powder, caster sugar, a separate portion of cocoa and salt make the dry batter mixture.

Melted butter and milk are whisked together before a whole egg and vanilla are incorporated. The wet mixture enters the dry ingredients to make a thick batter, which is spread into a butter-greased baking dish.

The sugar-and-cocoa topping is scattered over the batter. Boiling water is poured gently over the back of a spoon across the surface, and baking develops a crusty top with chocolate sauce beneath.

Maehashi serves the pudding warm after only a short rest, scooping cake and sauce together. She offers ice cream or cream separately with strawberries, and sometimes finishes the surface with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar.