This post should perhaps be entitled ‘I would feel really guilty if I ate a whole box of After Eights without sharing them so lets chuck some in this pudding to lessen my guilt!’  My dad had brought me a box of chocolates because I was suffering from a horrible cold and had had to take a day off work as I had lost my voice.  Apparently After Eights help you when you’ve lost your voice.  I’m not utterly convinced that they help the voice reappear but they did make me feel much better!   I made this pudding as I was in need of some comfort food – it’s incredibly moreish!

You will need:

For the pudding batter – 70g caster sugar, 50g butter (melted), 2 medium eggs, 75ml milk, 125g plain flour, 25g cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 60g After Eights (broken into smaller pieces).  

For the sauce – 80g muscovado sugar, 10g cocoa powder, 100ml boiling water.

Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a pudding basin as though your life depended on it!  Mix together the caster sugar, butter, eggs and milk.  Add the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.  Gently mix in the After Eights, taking care not to break them up too much. Pour this batter into your pudding dish.

Mix the sauce ingredients together and pour them over the pudding batter – it will look awful but go with it!

Place the pudding dish in the oven and bake for 30 minutes until the top looks risen and crisp.    Your pudding shouldn’t rise like mine did – apparently there was a force ten gale blowing in the oven as I cooked mine, hence the slightly oddly risen pudding in the picture above.

Eat whilst hot – as you dish out the pudding you should find a unctuous chocolate sauce underneath.  Best served with vanilla ice cream.