Friday, May 04, 2012

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?!

6 comments:

Kari said...

Given that I post in a very biased way about baking / snacks, I tend to view blogged foods as entirely distinct from 'regularly eaten' foods. So in other words, feel free to post about as much cake as you wish :)

This one does look rather nice, and perfect for cooler weather - I like the idea of adding ginger to it.

Nadine said...

oh yeah I loove self saucing pudding! Ginger is a good idea and I like the idea of nuts or dates too. Yum.

Kate said...

I love that cake, we make it regularly. And I'm all for cake for dinner!

Hannah said...

Isn't this just self-saucing pudding? I mean, not "just", but langauge-wise. Oh, I'm getting myself all in a muddle :P

Teehee, I too give the impression I eat only sweet things. Difference is, 80% of the time it's true ;)

Theresa said...

Yes Hannah, it's self-saucing pudding. I think the problem is that americans don't refer to cake as pudding, ever ever. It's a very British thing, no? So, "pudding cake" it becomes!

DJ said...

Haha - I'm glad you made it! I think ginger sounds like a brilliant addition, I'm definitely going to try that next time. I just love the fact that it's cake... with sauce! That is a completely win-win situation.