Chocolate Cake Pudding...

...or How to Recover from a Kitchen Accident and Look Fabulous !


Don't you hate it when you make your best cake ever, right on time so it will be slightly warm when served, and kaboooom ! You drop it ! We all have those horror stories. They are all too real, unfortunately. But I find that's in the face of adversity that we can make huge leaps in creativity. Let me share my story, which happened this past week-end...


I was pumped, ready to make my sin-delicious chocolate cake for the ceramics studio opening, Clay Associates. I stopped at the grocery store on my way from work to stock up on eggs (good thinking in retrospect!), and once home I started at once. Cake batter was ready in 20 minutes following the recipe on my previous post. I even added some clementine rind (out of oranges) for extra flavor (great combo !). I baked the cake for 30 minutes, it looked good, it smelled good, I was on a roll. I took it out of the oven, the kitchen towel I used to grab the pan slipped thus exposing my ring finger to the hot pan. Surprised, I screamed well-placed expletives while dropping my creation upside down on the lowered oven door! Followed by 10 seconds of silence, a minute of self-cursing, then heavy sweat. "What am I going to do ?" I could easily salvage the cake but it was in no shape presentable anymore.

What ensued was the longest 5 minutes in my life. I was processing thousands of ideas in my mind to turn my proverbial lemons into lemonade. I settled for the quick and easy, as I was running out of time. I made my first pudding !

You see, pudding originally is recycled bread, old bread that's too hard to eat. It is crumbled and soaked in a sweet egg-based cream to find new life as a warm dessert, excellent with ice-cream. Suddenly, it was the perfect solution for my problems.

Here is what I did.

1) I boiled a pint of half and half with a pint of fat-free milk (normally I would simply boil whole milk but I was out) and 1/2 cup sugar.

2) I beat 4 eggs and slowly added the warm milk to it while turning.

3) I added some vanilla flavor (1/8 teaspon) (it's optional and can be substituted with your favorite flavoring including alcohols!)

4) I crumbled the chocolate cake in small pieces and let them soak in the egg cream for 20 minutes

5) I transfered the mixture into a greased loaf pan and baked at 320F for 45 minutes.

The pudding was still warm when I brought it to the studio. It was an instant hit and disappeared quickly ! Light, soft, chocolatey with a smooth orangy flavor, not too sweet, it was divine, or as one guest told me "one bite and I went to Heaven!". Best compliment ever !