The Renegade Pudding Cooker

So, you know the two Gü chocolate puddings that I purchased as a token gesture towards a Valentine’s Day dinner, given Andy was on a late finish at work, and a full on gourmet feast was never going to happen because I don’t like going to bed feeling like I’ve eaten a boulder? These were they…

With Andy tucking into his curry dinner, I scoured the pudding packet for cooking instructions. They said: ‘Microwave for 1 minute. Do NOT put in oven.’ Oh bum. This was NOT what I signed up for when buying into my spontaneous romantic gesture. Now what do I do? Andy could take them to work with him to heat up in the microwave there, I supposed, but that would mean he would have TWO puddings and I would have NONE which seemed grossly unfair AND defeating of the Valentine Day gesture. Could they be eaten cold, I wondered? 

Houston - we had a chocolate pudding problem. Firstly, I don’t own a microwave. I’ve always been suspicious of them. ‘T’ain’t natural, cooking food that fast. All that pinging and potential for explosion, not to mention all the plasticky-type specialist cookware clogging up your cupboards. No thank you. Give me slow life Aga cooking any day. 

Secondly, why was I being ordered to NOT put them in the oven? Would they explode? Melt? Burn themselves to an inedible cinder? There seemed no reason for this diktat, and you all know what I am like re: needing a valid and sensible reason for doing something before I do it, or don’t do it in some cases. I have a natural stubborn streak in me which, for 90% of the time, serves me well.

Quite frankly, instructions like this ‘Do NOT put in oven’ are like a red rag to a grumpy cow, the grumpy cow being me. Me, who is a capable and confident cook who can wing it quite ably without a recipe? Me, who laughs in the face of ‘Dry Clean Only’ and ‘Do not tumble dry’ on laundry labels? Don’t make me laugh. Ha! 

The only problem I could envisage was that these here problematic puds might be inclined to dry out if baked slowly rather than having their atoms nuked for a minute at insane temperatures, so I stood the glass ramekins in which they languished in a bain marie (a.k.a a ceramic dish with water in it) and popped them in the oven, 180 degrees C for 15 minutes after which I poked them and they were done. They were hot, they were chocolatey, they were gooey. They were as they said on the packet. 

They were also disappointingly small, and a little cynical voice niggledy at me saying, ‘You could have made something twice as nice for half the price if you could have been arsed.’ Quite right, little cynical voice, but done is done and at least I got two cute glass ramekin dishes from the experience. 

P.S I was going to post this blog yesterday but thought I’d better wait at least 24 hours in case my renegade ‘cooking-a-microwave-only-pudding-in-an-oven’ triggered some fatal chemical reaction which would do me and His Lordship Malarkey unto death. Reader, it didn’t. All is well.