Puddin Cake

I realise that posting this may convey the impression that all I eat these days is cake, since my last two posts have involved polenta cake and rainbow vanilla cupcakes. I promise I do eat more than just cake, but last Friday it was rainy and cold in Townsville (got down to 17, brrr!). I was at work and I didn't really feel like being there. I presented a seminar, and then in the afternoon had a quick squiz at a few blogs. DJ's description of fudgy, sauce, chocolate puddin' cake immediately struck my fancy. And the stars were aligned - we have that cookbook! and our pantry would surely contain all the ingredients!

When we got home that afternoon, I told Andy that I was absolutely baking cake that evening, and that we should arrange some oven-based dinner. Or, I suggested, we could just eat cake for dinner. Andy was not supportive of that decision, but when he filled up the empty oven shelf with slow-baking seitan, our oven dinner options were limited. Still, he insisted we eat something with vegetables, so he whacked together a potato & wakame soup while I made cake.

I followed the recipe, from La Dolce Vegan, pretty closely, except that instead of nuts I used a whole heap of fresh ginger that one of Andy's co-workers had brought in from his garden. The batter was good, and then I did the weird part of the recipe - pouring boiling water over the batter in the pan. When it comes out of the oven, the cake floats on the surface of the pudding-y sauce, and looks like this.

I scooped a generous portion for myself, then another slightly larger bit for Andy... and we had nearly finished the whole cake... so we ended up just finishing the whole cake! It was a bit gluttonous, and I may have had a food baby afterwards, but it was exactly what I wanted - warm, gooey, gingery, and chocolatey. What else is there in life?!