This isn't the modest individually-portioned dessert offered in restaurants with whitened table linens. No, ma'am. Based on my mother, my grandmother will make this for the children whenever a special treat was merited. This untidy, sticky, cacao-wealthy affair is a lot more like a self-saucing brownie than other things. And like several may be, it is best offered warm with an ample scoop of vanilla frozen treats.
Within the copy of Favorite Quality recipes from First U . s . Methodist Chapel of Stillwater, Minnesota that's been passed on in my experience, the recipe for "Chocolate Cake Pudding" by Shirley Nelson is circled in bold blue ink. Out of the box the following recipe for "Chocolate Goo" from Judy Powell. And also the one for "Fudge Pudding Cake" from Doris LaVayea. The quality recipes are extremely similar, varying only slightly in elements as well as in using either COLD! or BOILING! water.
Inside a quick phone consultation with my mother, she chuckled and accepted that they had no clue which of those venerable chapel ladies' quality recipes my grandmother adopted, though she's certain it used cold water. My mother also takes note of sometimes adding a number of toasted nuts or fresh berries towards the batter. They get trapped underneath the cake layer, becoming hidden treasures for that lucky dessert recipient.
In tugging together my very own form of this vintage recipe, I merely channeled Grandmother Dola. What can Grandmother do? Increase the cacao powder, surely. And Grandmother would certainly offer the pat of butter using the milk. And cold water, if without other reason than it's faster than boiling it.
Even channelling Grandmother, this recipe still requires a leap of belief. The wedding cake batter is spread in to the pan along with a layer of mixed sugars and cacao powder continues top. Over everything, you pour single serving water. Forget about stirring. Forget about mixing. In to the oven it is going. The wedding cake increases to the peak while a thick pudding forms below.
The resulting warm, fudgy, gooey dessert is simply perfect. So perfect it's hard to stop yourself from "cleaning the perimetersInch until you have consumed an entire second square of cake. This stuff happen.