Ypsi Cooks

It's been hot, sticky and hot. We were going to have dinner with Tom's family and I thought we should bring dessert. I've had my eye on this S'more Chocolate Pudding for a few weeks now. I made vanilla pudding over the weekend for Peanut butter Banana Cream Pie, and it was a lot of stirring over a hot stove. Not exactly something I wanted to do in this weather. But the vanilla pudding had some microwave directions: stir and heat a little, then repeat. A lot. I figured I could do the same homemade pudding. I checked around on the internet and found some recipes that sounded good, and easy, and had good reviews, so I compared and combined as I saw fit. I tasted the pudding as it was beginning to thicken up and it was quite good even without the chocolate and vanilla. I poured it into a lovely glass bowl (a gift from my mother-in-law) layered with the graham crackers and marshmallows (note: they float, don't try to layer them IN the pudding). It looked quite lovely and tasted delicious.
Tom's “Uncle” declared it one of the best desserts he's ever had (!). Tom's brother, who is not the biggest chocolate fan, thought it would be good as a cake “frosting.” It could be like a lazy Boston Cream Pie where the chocolate and cream are all mixed together and poured over the top of a lovely yellow cake. I on the other hand think it would be great as a dip for some strawberries, or any of those other fruits that taste great with chocolate. Really, the possibilities are endless. Make some this weekend. I doubt you'll be disappointed.Easy Chocolate Pudding
Serves 6 (or a few more, especially if you use any of the additions listed below, many more if using as aforementioned fruit dip)

1/4 c corn starch
1/4 cup cocoa
1/3 cup sugar (a little heaping)
pinch of salt
***
3 cups milk
1/4 cup powdered milk if using skim
4 oz chopped dark chocolate (2 oz or even none if you're hoping for something more along the line of boxed pudding mix)
1 t vanilla

Whisk the first 4 ingredients in a large, microwave safe bowl. Slowly whisk in the milk. Microwave for 3 min, then stir. Continue microwaving, 1 minute at a time, stirring (it seems wise to scrape the sides) throughly in between. When the mixture is thickened and holds to a spoon, slowly whisk in the chocolate, stirring until melted, then whisk in the vanilla. Pour into individual cups & cover with plastic wrap (the wrap should be touching the pudding if you don't like skin, at the top of the container if you do). Chill for about 3 hours. The pudding will set up considerably.
If you're like me and you decide you want to serve it from one large bowl, allow MUCH more chilling time.

Alternatively, use the stove, but follow the same process, stirring regularly.

For S'more Rocky Road Pudding

1 recipe Easy Chocolate Pudding
4 oz graham crackers (or Trader Joe's Cinnamon Cat Cookies, or vanilla wafers, or animal crackers…)
1 tbsp melted butter
Mini marshmallows
Almonds

In a food processor, use short pulses to break up the cookies. Once mostly broken up, pulverize until a fairly even crumb. Add butter and mix for a few more seconds until even. Pour half the pudding into the cups, top with crumb mixture, top with the remaining pudding, (chill for a few minutes before adding the second layer of pudding if you're serving in a clear dish) and top the whole thing with marshmallows and chopped nuts. Chill as above.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Things we Made. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.