One of my oldest friends, Sena, taught this recipe to me approximately 15 years ago. It was a big hit then. We would make Panda cake every week. Especially that coco sauce; we didn't seem to get enough of it. Although this is really a pudding, since you need to cut it and eat it with a fork we call it a cake. I wanted to have Panda cake again for a long time, but didn't ask Sena to e-mail the recipe, because I thought it wouldn't be as good without mastic gum. But it turned out just fine with vanilla, too. Thanks, Sena!
200 gr. butter
1 - 1.5 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)
1 cup flour
1 liter milk
1 tsp vanilla or 1-2 piece mastic gum
for the sauce
50 gr. butter
4 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp unsweetened coco powder
4 tsbp milk
1 egg
-Heat butter in a pan. Add flour and sugar. Stir with a wooden spoon on medium heat constantly approximately for 5-7 minutes.
-Add milk. Stir constantly until it thickens up.
-Add vanilla or mastic gum if you can find it. (Read Haalo's post to learn more about mastic gum)
-Pour cold water in a big and shallow pot. Place the pudding pot in the big shallow one so that the pudding pot is surrounded by cold water. Beat pudding with electric mixer on medium to high for 15 minutes. This will air up pudding and give it a nice texture.
-Wet a 2 or 3 Quart glass dish like Pyrex. Pour pudding into the glass dish. Cover with a clear wrap and put in freezer.
-For the sauce, melt butter. In a mixing bowl beat butter, egg, sugar, coco powder, and milk. Add milk one tbsp at a time to lighten the sauce up.
-Spread the coco sauce on pudding which should be slightly firm by now. Put it back in the freezer.
-Take Panda cake out of the freezer 10 minutes before serving to give it a little time to warm up and be ready to be cut. Put the rest back into freezer.
-You can serve it with ice cream.
