Microwave chocolate self-saucing pudding (egg-free)

This easy-to-prepare yet decadent dessert is an enduring favourite in our household. Its rich, chocolatey, gooey sauce is a perfect complement to the soft crumb of the pudding, and better still, no egg: so everyone can enjoy it. Sans cream = a rich vegan dessert.

A rich, saucy chocolate pudding served with lashings of cream for that extra decadence

• Servings: 8
• Time: 1 hour
• Difficulty: easy, but you have to watch the cooking
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Ingredients

For the pudding

• 100 grams of castor sugar
• 125 grams of plain flour
• half a pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons of pure cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of  vanilla extract
• 125 ml of milk
• 2 tablespoons of a mild-tasting oil

For the sauce

• 65 grams of castor sugar
• 3 tablespoons of of cocoa mixed with 1 cup of hot water
• 6 tablespoons of light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

To finish

• Icing sugar (for dusting the top)

Directions

Before you start: lightly smear oil (or butter) on the inside of a microwave-proof 9-inch pie dish and dust it with cocoa.

1. Mix together all the ingredients for the pudding (sift the dry ingredients first, then stir in the liquids)
2. Pour this into the prepared pie dish.
3. In a new bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the sauce and pour it over the  pudding mixture in the pie dish.
4. Bake in a microwave oven on medium for 12 to 20 minutes, stopping every three minutes to turn the dish by a quarter-turn. The total time ultimately depends on your oven: a more powerful oven will need less time, an older, less powerful oven will need more.
5. As soon as it is cooked, dust the pudding with icing sugar and serve while it is still warm.

Notes

We use a 9-inch diameter glass casserole dish for this; it’s about 3 inches high. It has a lid, which helps the sauce stay, well, saucy. When we moved up to a new, more powerful microwave a few years ago, we found that if we pop some chopsticks just under the lid, it gives the perfect balance of moisture and heat to create a beautiful gooey sauce to pour over the soft crumb of the pudding when serving. You’ll have to experiment a bit with your own microwave to work out the ideal combination of power-settings and cooking time.

Source: Adapted from: Fresh Ways with Desserts (1986) Healthy Home Cooking. Time Life Books: USA.

A rich, saucy microwave chocolate pudding served with lashings of cream for that extra decadence