Chocolate Pudding Cake - The Lenten Version

Chocolate Pudding Cake doesn't sound like Lenten fare. What could be frugal and penitential about chocolate, pudding or cake, much less all three in one dessert? And why are we talking about dessert during Lent, anyway?

Well, traditionally, the six Sundays during Lent are excluded from the Fast, so we might enjoy dessert this Sunday on a technicality. But aside from that possible excuse, and totally ignoring all the sugar in the dish, I happened to find a recipe for Chocolate Pudding Cake that has no eggs, no dairy products and barely a smidgen of vegetable oil. If one had, say, given up all animal products for Lent without mentioning sugar or chocolate, one could quite innocently indulge in this dessert.

But alas and alack! Everyone knows the proof of the pudding lies in its taste, and luscious as the Chocolate Pudding Cake might sound and even appear, especially when darkly oozing fresh from the oven, the taste just isn't there. This Pudding Cake is like the packages of frozen diet desserts. Oh, if only the contents really tasted as good as the picture on the package looks! That is my experience with this cake.

So I've fiddled with the recipe, not a a lot, but a little. I swapped the 2 Tbs. vegetable oil for an equal amount of melted butter. Then where the original calls for hot water, I'm using hot milk. Cream would be better. Plus I've thrown in two squares of baking chocolate, melted into the butter. Now, this is chocolate. So much for the Lenten Fast. We'll serve this on Palm Sunday, when feasting has official blessings.

Recipe: Starr's Chocolate Pudding Cake

Note: Soy or Almond Milk may be used for dairy Milk.

1 cup flour
3/4 cup raw sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 oz (squares) semisweet or bitter chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 3/4 cups hot scalded milk

Heat oven to 350°. Stir together flour, sugar, 3 tablespoons cocoa, baking powder and salt. Melt chocolate in microwave then combine with 1/2 c. milk, oil and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients, mix only to blend. Batter will be very thick and lumpy. Spread the batter evenly in a lightly sprayed 9-inch square baking pan.

Combine brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa; sprinkle over the batter. Slowly pour hot milk over the batter and brown sugar-cocoa mixture. Bake cake for 40 minutes. It will not "test done" and may look like a molten gooey mess. That's perfect.

Let cake stand for at least 5 minutes. Serve warm in dessert dishes, topped with ice cream or whipped cream.