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When most of us think of comfort food, or desserts which evoke a sense of nostalgia, sponge cakes topped with custard sauces rank fairly high up there. Lots of you may remember having chocolate sponge cake with chocolate custard as part of your school dinners.
I must admit, I cannot remember eating this at school. I went to a primary school which was so tiny (a converted house), there was no space for a canteen and we used to eat packed lunches at our desks. My secondary school was the total opposite; a canteen existed but the quality of the food was so lacking, most of us brought our own lunches in by choice.
When I taste this pudding, the flavours do take me back to being a child. I suspect I was treated to this as a pudding in a restaurant we visited often, or perhaps it was a favourite at birthday parties. It can, of course, be modified to be a plain sponge cake with a regular custard, which would taste fab with a little spoon of jam spread on to the sponge.
I made a small loaf-tin sized chocolate cake, and a modest amount of custard, as the quarantine baking and eating is doing our waistlines no favours and we cannot even share it out! You can, of course, scale the recipe up. This recipe provided 8 slices of cake with custard, enough for 2 days of treats for the 4 of us at home.
Tips:
Be sure to hold on to your egg-whites after removing the yolks for the custard. You can use the egg whites in a recipe for mousse, macarons or meringues.
Be sure to "contact cover" your custard if you store any for later. This is the term used for covering the custard with cling film so that the film is directly touching the top layer of the custard. This stops a skin from forming on the custard, which will make your custard lumpy when you mix it. (A video demonstrating this is on our instagram page)
Spongey cakes work better when eating with custard, if your cake is too rich it will be a slightly overwhelmingly heavy pudding.
Be sure to serve with warm custard (take care with little ones)
You will need:
For the cake:
125g unsalted butter at room temperature
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g Self Raising flour (or plain flour with 1 tsp baking powder)
1 tsp baking powder
25g cocoa powder
2 tbsp milk
For the custard:
300ml whole milk
75ml double cream
3 egg yolks
40g caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour
splash of vanilla essence
25g chopped chocolate
Method:
Preheat your oven to 170 degrees c.
In a bowl, whisk together your butter and caster sugar until it is pale and fluffy.
Add your eggs and whisk at a medium speed.
Fold in (or mix at low speed) the flour, baking powder and cocoa. Once combined, slowly add your milk.
Spoon your batter into a baking tin and bake for 30 minutes. This time may need to be adjusted based on the size and depth of your cake. I had a 2lb loaf tin that was filled approximately 2 inches deep. When removing from the oven, check with a skewer that the middle is cooked.
While your cake is baking, you can prepare your custard.
In a saucepan, heat the milk and cream until it is bubbling at the sides.
In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, egg yolks, cornflour and vanilla. Add the milk once it has been warmed up. Stir well. Once combines, return to the pan and add the chocolate. Stir constantly over a medium heat until your sauce thickens and is smooth. Remove from the heat and serve warm poured over your warm cake.
Enjoy x