Chocolate Fudge Pudding

30g good quality chocolate, roughly chopped
30g butter, diced
teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon warm water
25g castor sugar
1 egg
5g self-rising flour

Preheat the oven to 200c/400f/gas 6

Melt the chocolate and butter in a Pyrex bowl over a pan of simmering water, once melted remove from heat and stir in vanilla essence, warm water and sugar. Stir until smooth. Separate the eggs and whisk the yolk through the chocolate mixture then fold in the flour. Whisk the egg white until it reaches stiff peaks then fold gently into the chocolate mixture.

Put your Cully & Sully ramekin into a bain-marie of hot water and cook in a preheated oven for 15 - 20 minutes. The pudding should be firm on top but soft and fudgy underneath. Serve with softly whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream.

Cully Says: There are 3 types of vanilla: vanilla essence, vanilla extract, and vanilla pods. Vanilla pods are usually infused into warming liquids, or kept in castor sugar which then takes on the vanilla flavour. Vanilla extract is highly concentrated and when cooking only requires half the quantity of vanilla essence. It is quite a bit more expensive than the synthetic vanilla flavouring.