It’s a mystery to us how this favourite pudding even works; you make a batter, scatter the top with sugar and cocoa, pour boiling water over, bake, then the oozy stuff somehow ends up on the bottom, creating a gooey, thick sauce for the springy, cakey top. There is a whizz-bang reason why this happens and believe it or not, there are actually people on subreddits with the time on their hands to explain why. Their musings literally begin with phrases like “ I dug deep to find the full breakdown of the exact chemistry behind the self-saucing pudding” and we feel like telling them there are diseases to cure and climate change to fix and couldn’t they put their science brains to more productive use? We’re  giving the Golden Book version here – the self saucing magic is to do with the gelatinising of surface starches, batters rising, mixtures not mixing, things sinking, other things hydrating and something something something structure. There. Science, munted. You’re very welcome.

It’s a while since we’ve made a self saucer and this time around, we thought we’d fancy it up with orange; who does not love jaffa vibes? We reckon strong, hot coffee instead of boiling water would work a treat over the top too for a touch of mocha-risation. In which scenario we’d chuck some chopped Whittaker’s Wellington Roasted Supreme Coffee chocolate at the batter too . Either way, this begs for lashings of whipped cream, ice-cream or both.

SERVES 6

150g (1 cup) self-raising flour

30g (¼ cup) cocoa

110g (½ cup firmly packed cup) brown sugar

60g butter, melted

125g (½ cup) milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

finely grated rind of 1 orange

80g orange-flavoured dark chocolate, chopped

vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and warmed marmalade (optional) to serve

Topping

40g (⅓ cup) cocoa

110g (½ cup firmly packed cup) brown sugar

juice of 1 orange

boiling water

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Sift the flour and cocoa into a large bowl, then stir in the sugar. Combine the butter, milk, vanilla, egg and orange rind in a bowl and whisk to combine well. Add to the dry ingredients in the bowl then whisk until a smooth batter forms. Stir in the chocolate, then spoon into a 1.5 litre (6 cup)-capacity baking dish, smoothing the top evenly. Scater the cocoa and sugar evenly over the batter. Measure the orange juice, then add enough boiling water to make 430ml (1¾ cups). Pour the boiling water evenly over the topping over the back of a dessert spoon. Bake the puding for 45-50 minutes or until the top is cooked through and the sauce is gooey and bubbling. Serve hot or warm with ice cream and warmed marmalade, if using.