Once that was in the pan, I mixed together boiling water, vanilla pudding powder, white sugar, and more vanilla extract, and poured that gently over the batter.Īfter thirty minutes in the oven, out it came - a rich yellow from the pudding powder, with a smooth vanilla sauce accompanying each piece. (In my book, vanilla flavored desserts ought to leave you in no doubt that they are, indeed, vanilla.) I also used brown sugar instead of white to give it a slight hint of caramel. I started with a rich butter cake batter laced with quadruple the vanilla extract. For most of my adult life I stayed with the tried-and-true chocolate theme, but this week I tried my hand at a vanilla self-saucing cake and was thrilled with the result. The recipe accompanied me when I left home, and I can't begin to count the number of times I've made it for friends and family. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Chocolate was definitely the favorite for my three brothers and me we loved it piping hot out of the oven so the vanilla ice cream would melt into creamy puddles and make even more scrumptious sauce. They were such an easy way for my Mum to feed and delight a whole lot of ravenous kids returning home from a day spent building forts and making a ruckus in the back yard.

Add a drizzle of fresh cream or a dollop of ice cream and you're in comfort heaven. It's like a bit of magic the way boiling water poured over cake batter transforms into a moist, tender cake with a lusciously creamy, pudding-like sauce on the bottom. When it comes to comfort food desserts, few things beat a self-saucing pudding cake.

Cake with vanilla pudding recipe