Can I Make The Chocolate Pear Pudding Gluten Free?

Our answer

Nigella's Chocolate Pear Pudding (from NIGELLA EXPRESS) has pears embedded in a chocolate sponge. The pudding is served with a chocolate sauce. The pudding is quick to make as it uses canned pears and most of the ingredients are found in the pantry.

The pudding is made with regular plain (all-purpose) flour and we would not recommend using ground almonds (almond meal or almond flour) as a direct substitute as the almonds contain a lot of oil and this will lead to the sponge being too greasy. You may be able to use a combination of gluten-free plain flour (or all-purpose baking mix) as this often works well in this type of denser pudding. You could try a half almond and half gluten-free flour combination. However, as we have not tried this ourselves, we are unable to guarantee the results. As an alternative you could try serving the gluten-free version of Nigella's Chocolate Tahini Banana Bread with some poached or drained, canned pears alongside and the chocolate sauce spooned over each portion.