Back in the 15th Century, we were
‘treated’ to the War of the Roses - where Richard was dumped in a car park
and Henry gave birth to a psychopath (well,
his wife did – he waited outside the room praying for a knob) who ingeniously
created his own church. Or did Cromwell do that? Or Anne? I’m not sure but
whatever happened, the Pope was very pissed off.
More recently, though, we have
enjoyed such delights as the Lord of the Flies, Stig of the Dump, Planet of the
Apes, Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead.
Keeping well within that dynasty, I
am now proud to present my own offering: Steak of the Puddings.
It’s not that this pudding is made
out of steak or anything; that would be silly, wouldn’t it? Although there is
steak and kidney pudding but that’s not ACTUALLY a pudding is it? It’s all very
confusing, this pudding malarkey.
So, here is my guide to the Steak
of the Puddings:
Steak tartare
I’m not into tartare but my mum is
a big advocate, so I thought I should include it. This is where you don’t even
consider heating up, let alone cooking, the cake mixture. Instead, you take a
spatula and shovel (all of) the raw mixture into your mouth.
Verdict:
An acquired taste but this method does have a small group of staunch
devotees. Perfect for a break-up.
Blue
Blue is something that, for me, is
still a bit extreme. You cook the chocolate only until the outside (the top of
the cake) has formed a thin crust. Underneath this crust will lie luke-warm/cool
chocolatey mixture.
Verdict:
Yum. It’s good – it’s real good but it’s not hot enough and you feel like
you might be on the verge of food poisoning.
Rare
Now. NOW. This is where it starts
to get good. We’re still not talking about much cake – maybe 2 tablespoons of
cake? The rest is a combination of warm chocolate sauce and warm cake mixture.
This is my mum’s favourite.
Verdict:
You would still look weird if you served this on Come Dine With Me.
Medium
We’re now getting to the point
that, when you tip your cake out of the ramekin, there is a sort of cake. It
collapses (because there is still too much hot chocolate sauce) but there IS
the outline of a cake there. This is where it all starts getting a bit too
‘done’ for my liking.
Verdict:
Most people will probably favour this stage because it’s cakey enough to be
called a cake. If you’re serving this in public eg: not sitting on your sofa
watching back-to-back episodes of Girls, you should perhaps serve it in the
ramekin to avoid the splodge.
Well-done
If you tip your cake out and it
stands tall, containing its sauce (think M&S advert), you’ve cooked it for
too long in my opinion. Your cake to sauce ratio will be all out, resulting in
a dry, chewy fondant pudding. No fun at all.
Verdict:
Some people insist on having it well-done but only because they’re scared
of dying and stupid stuff like that.
I would say that the optimum line
of attack with this pudding is medium-rare (see picture).
Unfortunately, I can’t remember
where this recipe was from. If any chefs and stuff read my blog (HA HA HA) and
this is their recipe, please let me know, ta.
Serves 2
50g butter
A bit of butter, to grease
2 tsp cocoa powder, to dust
50g dark chocolate (you should use
dark but I didn’t have any so used milk, which doesn’t give it such a choccy
taste or look)
1 egg
1 yolk (massive pain, I know)
50g caster sugar
50g plain flour OR 25g/25g
plain/self-raising works well too
- Preheat your oven to 160c fan or if your oven is very efficient, perhaps 150c fan. If you don’t have a fan oven, add on 20c to each of these temperatures.
- Butter 2 large ramekins (10cm diameter) and dust liberally with cocoa.
- Melt chocolate and butter in a bain-marie (or to be honest, the microwave would probably be fine too). Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
- Whisk egg, yolk and sugar until pale, thick and able to hold a trail.
- Fold in the chocolate mixture.
- Sift the flour over the mixture and fold in.
- Divide the mixture between the ramekins.
- Bake for 7 minutes (blue), 10 minutes (rare), 12 minutes (medium rare), 14 minutes (medium) – although all times vary according to ovens, so experiment plenty of times to find your optimum style.
- Turn out into warm bowls and serve immediately.
This reminds me of something I saw in my vegan cake book. They cook it in a rice cooker or slow cooker, I can't remember which, but it comes out looking like a volcano (erupting choco lava). If I remember I will send it you :-)
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