There’s one dessert that’s taking over the internet right now, and unsurprisingly, it comes from Ina Garten.

Seventeen years after the Barefoot Contessa first shared her brownie pudding recipe on her namesake show, the decadent chocolate dessert is going viral on social media. Over the past two weeks, a litany of home cooks have taken to Instagram and TikTok to share clips of their batches of the brownie pudding.

Within seconds, it’s easy to understand this dish’s appeal. A crisp crust on top crackles as you break into it with a serving spoon, giving way to the visibly moist, slightly cakey chocolate pudding that lies beneath. Because it’s part brownie and part puddingthe warm dessert can be easily spooned into a bowl but still holds some of its shape. Enjoying it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a must.

Garten whipped up this brownie pudding on camera in 2008 as a dessert to celebrate her 40th anniversary with husband Jeffrey. In the episode, she notes that “Brownies, Jeffrey, and I, we go way back,” recounting that she used to send him brownies in the mail while he was at college. However, Garten also explains that this is actually a recipe from the late chef Anna Pump, an author of four cookbooks and the owner of the Loaves & Fishes Foodstore in the Hamptons.

While most American puddings are made on the stovetop — custards carefully stirred until they thicken, usually with no flour involved — there are other recipes, like Ina Garten’s, that call for baking a custard-like mixture in the oven until it’s soft but just firm enough in the center, with a delicate crust on top.

We’ve shared a lemon pudding cake recipe before, and if you’ve ever enjoyed corn pudding at Thanksgiving, then you know how satisfying these warm, gooey dishes can be. Baked puddings like these and Garten’s brownie pudding typically call for a little bit of flour in the batter, which helps the mixture set and is critical for developing a consistency that feels like a cross between a classic pudding and a cake.

Food & Wine editor Amelia Schwartz recently made Garten’s brownie pudding recipe herself, and she came away with a few key tips. To start, Schwartz’s brownie pudding was liquidy than the desserts she saw other home cooks serving online, so you may need to bake the pudding for longer than the one hour that Garten calls for.

Schwartz explains that “I made this recipe in a hurry, but I told myself, ‘Brownie pudding should already be gooey, so there’s really no way to criminally underbake it, right?’ In the instructions, Ina says to bake the brownie pudding for precisely one hour, then check it with a cake tester inserted about 2 inches from the side of the dish, which should come out three-fourths clean.

“I (shamelessly) skipped the cake tester and relied on pure faith. I waited about five minutes (Ina said to let it cool, but didn’t give a sense of how long) and then broke into it with a spoon. Aside from the edges, it was like hot brownie lava — pure fudgey goo.”

She also points out that Garten’s recipe doesn’t include salt, and recommends adding at least one quarter of a teaspoon — plus a sprinkle of flaky salt on top of each serving if you have it. Even when underbaked, Schwartz reports that the brownie pudding “reminded me of a hot fudge sundae (one of my favorite desserts, thankfully)” albeit one that was “ fudge than ice cream.”

Make sure you use a cake tester to confirm that the dessert is done before removing it from the oven — you’re going for brownie pudding, not brownie soup — but serious chocolate lovers should give this dessert a go, and in the worst-case scenario, you’ll end up with a bowl of hot fudge.