This doesn’t taste like health food, and I’m not going to pretend it’s an all the time food. It’s a chocolate pudding so of course not, however it uses great whole foods ingredients and can easily be adapted to suit a variety of diets. There is no refined sugar and you could probably make it vegan by using an egg substitute (I haven’t done this yet). And it tastes like comfort food, because it’s a chocolate self saucing pudding and there are few other desserts as comforting as that. It also passed the boyfriend, family and house mate test. Gooey chocolate sauce, a chocolate sponge with hints of coconut. Sold? You should be.

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 baking powder

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

Directions

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

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

3. Pour mix into prepared 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 and skewer 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).

HH. x