Brownie Pudding

For the last 2 days, I've been hankering for something chocolate. Odd for me, since I'm not at all a chocoholic. And I wonder if my craving is due to this recipe for brownie pudding from Lucy Waverman's column in the Globe and Mail this past Saturday.

Luckily I had all the ingredients to whip this up tonight. The description of the recipe made me reminisce about the packaged pudding cakes my parents used to buy where you would mix the cake package with water, spread it in a pan, sprinkle the sauce powder evenly on top, then pour boiling water over all of it and bake.

Of course the brownie pudding turned out far better than any packages ever did!! The brownie layer sits upon a thick, rich pudding. The dessert is dark, very chocolatey and not too sweet. Because it's so rich, this recipe makes more servings (probably 6 to 8) than what the recipe says, especially if you top it with ice cream.

I used Dutch processed cocoa instead of non-alkalized cocoa and I baked it for 40 minutes. We ate this right out of the oven so that the pudding stayed liquid. We'll eat the leftovers tomorrow and see what the texture is like.

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