CHOCOLATE SELF SAUCING PUDDING – THE WHOLE FOODS VERSION

There is no refined sugar and you could probably make it vegan by using an egg substitute. Gooey chocolate sauce, a chocolate sponge with hints of coconut.

Ingredients
60g melted butter (or coconut oil, this intensifies the coconut flavour)
1/2 cup milk (I’ve used almond, cow’s and coconut all excellent)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2  tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/2 cup spelt flour (buckwheat also works for gluten free)
1 tsp BP
1/4 cup desiccated coconut (make sure it is unsweetened)
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup raw cacao powder

Sauce
1/3 cup cocoa
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1.5 cups boiling water

1. Grease a 1 litre baking dish and preheat oven to 180 celsius.

2. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk milk, butter, syrup, vanilla & egg together.
Pour into dry ingredients and fold to combine.

3. Pour mix into baking dish and smooth top. Sprinkle dry sauce ingredients over the top in an even layer. Pour boiling water over the back of a spoon and onto the pudding.

4. Place in the oven for 35-45 minutes. It is ready when the sponge, about 2cm in from the edge, is cooked (poke with a skewer which comes out clean) but there is still thick liquid around the bottom and very edges. Don’t worry if the middle still looks a little wobbly, I usually find that if you wait for the middle to be cooked it doesn’t end up saucy enough.

I served mine with a banana and coconut ice cream but cream or coconut cream would also be great! (Banana ice cream is simply 2-3 frozen bananas, 1/4 tsp vanilla seeds, 1/4 cup desiccated coconut blitzed in a food processor until soft serve consistency).

BERRY AND THYME SKILLET SPONGE PUDDING

So easy, light and yummy; the berries soak into the sponge as it’s cooking and the thyme makes this pudding a little bit more special. It so stupidly simple to make. I love this dessert – super easy and totally delicious, and also lower in fat and higher in fibre and omega 3’s.  Serves 4

Ingredients
3 cups mixed frozen berries
1 Tbs chia seeds
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves + extra for serving
1 vanilla bean
1 egg
2 Tbs coconut sugar
1/4 cup wholemeal spelt flour
1/4 tsp BP
25cm skillet that is oven proof

Preheat oven to 200 Celsius.

Scrape the vanilla pod and place 1/2 the seeds and the whole scraped pod in a 25cm skillet
with the berries, chia, thyme and 1/4 cup water. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the pod.

Beat the egg & sugar together until doubled in volume. Mix through the other half of the vanilla seeds. Mix the flour and BP together. Fold flour into the egg mixture gently until just combined.

Dollop the batter over the berries and then bake in the oven for 10 minutes until golden. Serve with a sprinkling of icing sugar (optional) and the extra thyme leaves.