30 Jun Caramel Apple Self-saucing pudding

This caramel apple self-saucing pudding is the perfect dessert for a cold winters eve. It has a crispy crust on top, a moist sponge pudding, and a layer of delicious apple chunks smothered in a gooey caramel sauce underneath. Add a scoop of good quality vanilla ice cream and you have yourself the ultimate comfort food!

The magic of a self-saucing pudding is that the batter separates on baking to make a fudgy sponge pudding with a rich sauce underneath. This requires minimum effort on your part – place chopped apple pieces in a dish, pour over a simple batter, sprinkle with a mixture of brown sugar and cornflour, then pour over a mix of hot water and syrup. Place the whole lot in the oven to do its magic and voila! A beautiful pudding emerges from the oven 40 minutes later. As the mixture bakes, the sauce mixture sinks to the bottom and thickens under the pudding, coating the apple pieces in the most heavenly caramel.

I used Granny Smith apples for a little tartness, but any apples would work (or try using pears). For another delicious apple dessert, click here.

Ingredients:

(Serves 6-8)

For the pudding:
4 medium apples
210g flour (1½ cups)
10ml baking powder (2 tsp)
150g brown sugar (¾ cup)
200ml milk
2 large eggs
125g salted butter, melted
5ml vanilla essence (1 tsp)

For the sauce:
100g brown sugar (½ cup)
15ml cornflour (1 tbsp)
2,5ml salt (½ tsp)
100ml golden syrup
200ml boiling water 

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a large ovenproof dish (about 23 x 23cm).
• Peel, core and slice the apples into chunks about 1cm thick. Spread over the base of the dish.
• Add the flour, baking powder and brown sugar to a large bowl and stir.
• Lightly beat the milk, eggs, melted butter and vanilla together. Add to the dry ingredients and beat together until smooth. Spread evenly over the apples.  
• Combine the sugar, cornflour and salt and sprinkle over the batter. Stir the golden syrup and hot water together and pour onto the surface of the pudding over the back of a tablespoon (this helps the liquid fall gently and not push through the surface of the batter).
• Bake for 40-45 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream or cream.