I lost my cooking mojo last week. And I hated it.
My “wee” cousin, Scott, was up visiting, celebrating his 30th birthday. We haven’t seen each other much in the the past five years and so it was really lovely to have time to catch up and laugh and get to know each other’s partners and chat about rubbish. As it was Scott’s birthday and as he is a notoriously fussy eater, I decided to make all his favourites: a very simple dinner of steak, chips and salad followed by chocolate cake.
Simple. Plain. Easy, right? Wrong. The chocolate cake didn’t rise and was binned. The steak was unspectacular. The chips were dry. I am, it seems, rubbish at “plain”. Added to this, earlier in the week my fail safe vegetable lasagne failed and my vegetable curry tasted like nothing. Bah.
Thankfully, one thing went right. Having been unable to produce a birthday cake for my cousin’s birthday, I whipped up some chocolate pudding mixture which rose perfectly. Like a moister, heavier soufflé, these puddings are genuinely simple to make, gorgeously rich and utterly delicious. Spongy on the outside, melty on the inside.
Hot Chocolate Pudding (adapted from Delicious magazine – not sure of date…)
makes 8
150g unsalted butter, cut into smallish pieces
100g good dark chocolate
100g good milk chocolate
125g plain flour
Pinch of salt
175g caster sugar
6 eggs
- Break up the chocolate and place in a glass bowl with the butter. Melt gently over a pan of almost simmering water.
- Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
- Whisk the eggs and sugar together until fluffy. Stir into the flour.
- Add the chocolate and fold until combined.
- Spoon into 8 buttered ramekins and place in the fridge until ready to bake.
- Heat oven to 180 oC. Bake the puddings for 12-15 mins until risen and looking like a volcano.
- Eat. With Cream. Or ice cream.
(Me & Scott)
A Wee Bit of Cooking 
Though you have my deep sympathy , I’m really quite relieved that other people suffer from this too . Perhaps it’s due to planet alignment or something !
A good melting chocolate pudding makes up for everything , though . Good choice .
Hi Wendy,
Blogs just aren’t my thing, but I happened upon yours when looking online for a recipe, and I’ve been hooked on reading your entries since. I’m now having second thoughts on blogs… I thoroughly enjoyed this entry on your less than spectacular dinner, and I’m sorry about how it all turned out, but oh! How good that pudding looks!
I find your writing a joy to read, topics interesting, and I look forward to “getting to know you” over time. I’m in the US, Washington state and a hop/skip to Canada, so we’re at about the same latitude, hence we have similar weather year ’round, you and I. I recently moved to WA from southern California, so for me, this weather is very new, exciting, and unusual, and I’m beginning to realize how much food plays a part in winter in colder climates. Looking forward to all your forthcoming posts! Anne
That chocolate pudding looks so tempting – it is breakfast time but I could easily push my spoon in right now. I’ve been having a fair few cooking disasters recently. Last night I even managed to ruin a simple bit of grilled chicken. It ended its life in the bin and I had a cheese toastie instead!
I know the feeling! Glad the chocolate pudding delivered the goods! Cute pic too – interesting to see even then you had a puppy at your side!
That happens to us all Wendy. but those chocolate puddings definitely made up for it. They look heavenly. I must give them a go and give my poor wee underused ramekins an airing 🙂
Bloomin’ heck, even got my own name wrong there!
ps loved the photo xx
Oh my. I want a chocolate pudding know, and it is 8am. I guess there is no bad time for chocolate.
Thank you for sharing that picture of you and your cousin–it’s priceless!
*now* not know. C’mon, me, learn to spell! Argh.
You’ve lost your cooking mojo and apparently we’ve all lost our spelling mojo! Tee hee. The chocolate pudding looks fabulous, and that photo is adorable!
Even when a small person you had a thing for long-eared pups!
Loss of mojo = story of the past 3 months (or more) for me…it’s horrible. BUT a good chocolate pudding-thing-o is a real mojo-booster. Bookmarking now.
(P.S. Did you get my book email last week? I’d hate for you to think I don’t have time for you, darls!)
oh goodness, that sounds fantastic! i’m just thinking about the fact that there are so many failed clafoutis in the trail of “masterchef” when i read about the sponge outside and the gooey middle here…:)
they look lovely
i always find things go wrong when im under pressure to produce something thats got to be right ~ i do not enjoy cooking that way
i could not be a TV chef!!!
funny you say you werent into cooking this week ~ its weird how that suddenly seems to strike ~ normally cooking is the only thing that makes me feel better.
happy cooking! happy eating!
I just discovered that , by putting Torta alla gianduia into your search engine, you can find this recipe blogged by 80 Breakfasts. It’s worth it.
Geraldine – And I’m glad to know I’m not the only one too.
Anne – Hello! Thank you so much for the kind words. They really did make my day. Hope to hear from you again. 🙂
Antonia – It’s the danger of blog reading, I find. I wanted stew the other day at breakfast time.
Johanna – Yes, David noticed the pup thing too!
Jacqueline – I love my ramekins. 🙂
Christina – You’re welcome. It’s one of my favourites. 🙂
Domestikate – Hee hee.
Lucy – Yes. My pup obsession was with me from a young age. Always, actually, I think.
Pia – It was pretty good!
Pippa – Cooking relaxes me. It was very odd to have a period where it was causing me stress. Thank goodness, it seems to be over. And, I can’t imagine being on Masterchef or anything either. Stress!
Yvonne – Thank you! Looked it up and am loving the idea of it.
Oh my stars! I’m drooling over the pudding.
We all have kitchen flubs, some of us more often than others! I’ll bet Scott had a great time seeing you.