Lyndar in "Actually Can Bake" Shocker!

Well, people, I have oodles and oodles of news for y'all, what with having a trip to New York sprung on me on Christmas morning, attending the wedding of our friends Pum & Alex on New Year's Eve, and actually going to NYC for a 6 day jaunt and celebrating my birthday there.

That'll all have to wait, though - right now I have to share with you my culinary success of last night! Pum & Alex called down for their first visit as A Married Couple and something to eat from Himself's shiny new Rachel Allen cookbook. Himself had told me that I was on dessert duty... and that He wanted me to make something from scratch.

I know straight away what I wanted to make - individual chocolate ganache puddings similar to those served by Roly's at the Taste Of Dublin Festival in 2006. [I'm no foodie, but sometimes I dream about those puddings.] After an entire day spent panicking and researching recipes and then panicking at the fact that I don't own a mixer or any similar cooking paraphenalia so how the feck would I make something that lovely, I settled on a bastardisation of a Nigella Lawson recipe. I added a teaspoon of Vanilla essence to the batter to make sure they wouldn't taste flat, and my chocolate of choice was Green & Black's, naturally. Oh, and I used a muffin tin - what non-cook would have ramekins handy, like?

Gooey Chocolate Puddings

Ingredients:
125g best quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
125g unsalted butter
3 large eggs
150g sugar
35g plain flour, preferably Italian 00
Butter and flour for preparing ramekins

Method:
Before you’ve even taken your coat off, put the chocolate and butter in a bowl and suspend over a pan of simmering water. Whisk every now and again until melted. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and flour until just blended. Gradually whisk in the melted chocolate and butter. Set aside to rest.

Grease four 250ml ramekins with butter and add flour to cover the butter, tapping the ramekins to get rid of the excess. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6/200°C about half an hour before you want to eat pudding. And I’d leave cooking them until you’ve finished the main course. It doesn’t matter if there’s no food on the table for 10 minutes, and these do have to be done on the last minute.

So pour the mixture into the ramekins and put them on a baking sheet in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the tops are firm and cracking slightly and the edges set. Serve immediately and consider providing a jug of cold, cold cream for people to pour into their pudding’s hotly deliquescing interior as they eat."

Recipe from Greeneyez.co.uk

They really looked the part and, much to the complete shock of everyone present, they were ab-sol-ute-ly delish. I served them fresh-out-of-the-oven warm with vanilla ice cream and quite accidentally overshadowed Himself's fabulous steaks with thick home-made chips. Oopsie!

My only regret is that I hadn't charged the camera since our return from Noo Yawk, so I couldn't document my triumph in pictures. I intend to rectify that on the 9^th February, though, so watch this space!