After the mayhem of the past few days, I decided that a hefty dose of restorative chocolate was required to repair my weary physical constitution. Happy thoughts are all well and good for the spirit and the brain but, in times of stress, the body needs something more sustaining….like chocolate. So, yesterday, I made a fortifying dessert called “Boarders’ Favourite”. Others may know it as a chocolate self saucing pudding or fudge batter pudding but, in my world, it is “Boarders’ Favourite”.
I first met this chocolate pudding at boarding school. Most of our food was typically awful boarding school fare but, every once and awhile, our ever hungry boarder appetites were treated to the utter deliciousness of what was known as “Boarders’ Favourite”. How the cooks managed to make this dessert so well and almost everything else so terribly I have no idea, but such are the mysteries of life.
Look at this photo collage and imagine yourself as a ravenous teenager falling in to the depths of chocolate love, and feasting your senses on the taste and sight and smell of ooey, gooey chocolateness.
Believe it or not, I didn’t much like chocolate before I went to boarding school. And, believe it or not, it wasn’t till I was in my late twenties that I realised that this chocolate pudding had any other name but Boarders’ Favourite.
The recipe I use for my Boarders’ Favourite is a slightly grander version than the one that our cooks used at boarding school because it includes walnuts. However it is still, despite its richness, a very simple and economical recipe. I found it in a magazine type recipe book that I purchased in the one and only bookstore in Gaborone, Botswana. I thought it was wickedly extravagant to spend almost four Pula (dollars) on a recipe book back in those long ago days, but that purchase has served me well over many, many years. It has travelled with me all over the world. And, because the ingredients of Boarders Favourite are so basic, I have managed to bake it wherever I have roamed. Now, here I am, still baking it, but back in the city where my chocolate obsession began.
Footnote: My favourite baking cocoa is from a New Zealand company called Trade Aid which sources and sells Fair Trade organic cocoa.
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oh goodness, now here i am with a chocolate attack at 6:30 in the morning! i think i’ll have a stout coffee instead of ginger/mint/lemon tea! z
That will do the trick.
Oh, the feeling of that rich, gooey, warm cake and pudding (with ice cream, of course) is one of life’s unique pleasures. There aren’t many things that even come close !!
Quite so.
Glad to hear that your latest problems are over, it’s good to treat yourself, you deserve it.
Thank you. I am fond of treats, especially chocolate ones 🙂
Chocolate is great comfort food and we all need it from time to time. Looks delicious and very rich.
There is this saying: Save the planet Earth, it’s the only one with chocolate.”
That is a good enough reason for me.
Hope you feel more on top of things again!
I like that expression/saying. So true.
🙂
Gosh, when I looked at those photographs of the chocolate it was as if I could smell and taste it all at once. Utterly divine! I have not heard of this before, but am now feeling compelled to make one and indulge. Gallivanta, what have you DONE?!! xxx
I am wicked with chocolate.
Looks very tasty! Nice to see your old recipies. I didn’t like chocolate very much as a child ( I think) I prefered other sorts of sweets. But I try to stay away from sweets now (of course it’s not easy)
Not easy at all.
Hehe! Thanks for sharing the recipe 😀 and the memories :-O I found the part about boarding school very intriguing – the story is like out of a book or a movie!
Glad you enjoyed them. I think the Harry Potter movies gave boarding school food too good a name, although I think that these days the food in boarding schools is very much better than it used to be.
Oh, I wish you hadn’t mentioned chocolate!
Go on, have some!
🙂
Did you say ‘chocolate’…??
Yes, would you like some? You better hurry however because I am eating it all rather quickly.
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”
― Charles M. Schulz
It tasted absolutely delicious and there were no calories to worry about. I love photography!!!
What a good idea. Next time I crave chocolate I shall look at my photos and feast without guilt. Actually I never feel guilty about eating chocolate 🙂 Creams sometimes, but never chocolate.
I always know that you were a renaissance woman!!
You do need some “soul food”…..nurture and nourish. I met self saucing choc pud when I learnt to use a microwave oven in the 1980’s. The smell as it is cooking is divine but not as divine as the finished gooey goodness. I think I have just put on 10kgs just thinking about such a pud. Bon Appetit!!!!!
I have put on almost that much eating it! Of course, it needs ice cream as well.
I believe that chocolate is an under-rated solution to so many vexing life problems. This looks to die for and somewhat similar to my mother’s Tunnel of Fudge Cake… I of course am dieting for the upcoming wedding.. But after, drowning my sorrows and all, this sounds like just the ticket. I am printing it! Thank YOU!
Mmmm, I am liking the sound of Tunnel of Fudge Cake.