Raisin Chocolate Self-saucing Pudding

Since childhood I have loved this Raisin Chocolate Self-saucing Pudding for its generous chocolate sauce and juicy raisins, so I’m very pleased to report that the recipe works well with gluten free flour. Today’s post is from our guest blogger Loina, who made the pudding while testing a sample of flour from Vitarium. We are also offering a giveaway of Vitarium products for readers to try (details below).

The Pudding Trial
We were sent a generous sample of Vitarium Gluten Free Self-Raising Flour to test. The flour comes in a large plastic 1kg bottle, which is great for storage but you have to be careful getting the flour out as it is very light and tends to rush out, dusting the cook and the area around. It’s only a minor problem once you are aware of it.

Having used GF flour before and found it’s better in moister bakings, I chose to make a Raisin Chocolate Self Saucing pudding. The recipe is set up so it’s easy to double etc. depending on how many you want to feed or how many nights you want it for.

The resulting pudding was delightful, with a crispy top and a lovely texture. It rose well, and the Vitarium GF SR flour was as good as ordinary flour for this dish.

I also tried the Vitarium flour with ordinary cake, where you usually find the texture dry and crumbly with GF flours. I did a banana cake (but may have put in too much bicarb soda), and the texture was, if anything, a little glutinous (no pun intended), and there was a very faint after-taste. A coffee cake had a better texture; more like ordinary cake, but the faint after taste remained, and it became dry over time (eat it up soon). It’s an improvement on most other GF flours; and I wonder if it would be better with a cake with a stronger flavour. Of course, any cake with only a small proportion of flour works better with GF flours e.g. mud cakes.

We haven’t used gluten free SR flour very much, since we’ve usually found general purpose flour plus raising agents better. Vitarium also sent a sample of GF Plain flour to test. I think I’ll try a white sauce (béchamel), as it is the base for lots of sauces; this is something of a challenge for using GF flours, especially as regards to quantities. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Vitarium Product Giveaway
There are 5 Vitarium product packs available to be given away to Australian readers. The winners will be selected randomly from the comments on this post in two weeks time (10th August 2010). Readers may also be interested in Vitarium’s Bake Off.

Recipe: Rasin Chocolate Self-sauding Pudding
Pre-heat oven to 200 Degrees C (400 F)

Pudding:
1 cup SR flour (the GF flour worked fine; you don’t have to weigh it)
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup milk
60 g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup washed raisins (it moistens and plumps them)
Mix dry ingredients. Add other ingredients; mix well. Spoon into large round greased ovenproof dish.

Sauce:
Dry: ½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
Mix together, spread over pudding.

1 ¼ cups hot (boiling) water
Pour over pudding (use the back of a tablespoon to pour over to prevent holes)

Bake in a moderate oven for ¾ to 1 hour (skewer comes out clean). You may need to decrease the temperature after ¾ hour. The pudding rises and the sauce is under it. Serve hot with ice cream, cream (or however you like it).