Actually, it is called a ‘hot chocolate pudding’ in Nigel Slater’s book The Kitchen Diaries, 2005. I named it Martian, because it behaved somewhat like a supernatural alien.
When I put it into the oven, it nearly went astral. The mass grew up into a lovely big half shell, with colours going from yellowish brown to dark violet, cut through by thin reddish rays. When the insinuating chocolate smell started scrabbling our rooms, I returned to the kitchen to raise this wonder to the proper height of the cosy Sunday dinner.
In a few minutes, when my husband came to the dinner, he also got excited about this Martian guest, but so wasn’t I anymore. The pudding went down and looked like a thick dark brown pancake. You can still recognize the lines of Martian rivers on it, some hills, but it’s not a big half shell any more.
‘Maybe I kept it too long in the oven and it went too dry,’ I thought. When we finished our dinner, I put the rest of the pudding under a glass lid, only to find out next morning that my extra-terrestrial lived a secret night life. The hills became a bit more pronounced, but the main thing – the pudding seemed to have soaked some humidity from the air under the lid. It became more wet, softer and more tender in its chocolate bitterness.
Does he hide any more secrets, this otherworldly friend? Can’t know, it flew by our noses very fast.
Best wishes,
Katia
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