Double Chocolate Pudding

I have terrible timing. Well, not really; only when it comes to cooking/baking things. When my mom is out of town for long stretches of time I make dinner for my dad, sister, and myself. It’s pretty fun, especially trying to find stuff that I think will work. So far I’ve only had a few dishes not turn out so great, but that’s all part of the experience, right? So, once I’ve picked a dish that I’ll make I think about it all day, and then dinner starts creeping up and I think I’ve allowed myself time to make dinner and have it ready on the table by 6-6:15, but no…that hardly ever happens. It’s usually more like 6:30-6:45, but close enough.

Now is where I digress. You heard last week about my wisdom teeth removal. Everything went fine and dandy, and the pain wasn’t too bad either. I actually woke up while they were stitching me up…which was kind of weird because I was looking at the doctor and nurse and they didn’t seem a bit surprised; they just kept stitching me up. They must have given me some more antistatic because the next thing I know I’m waking up with my parents looking at me. The only terrible part was that I wasn’t able to chew anything. I had to mush everything with my tongue and the roof of my mouth, even oatmeal (which I ate a lot).

Right so now back to my poor timing (I hope I’m not giving you whiplash here). Before I got the surgery done, I tried making pudding from scratch for the first time, you know, so I could eat something sweet and not look like a pudding with peanut butter on his nose while eating. Well, it didn’t set up properly. Actually it didn’t even turn out to be pudding, it was more like chocolate soup, which was nice and all, just not what I wanted. So here I am a week later, 99.99% better, able to eat normal solid food (kind of), and what do I do? I decide to try that pudding one more time.

This time the pudding-making process went much more smoothly. I felt more confident about when the milk was steaming and when the mixture was at a good thickness. The only downside: I forgot the vanilla extract. I just knew I was forgetting something as I was mixing the ingredients together, but I couldn’t remember what. I actually didn’t find out until I started writing this post. Oh well.

This pudding comes out to be really thick and chocolately. It kind of reminds me of those pudding cups (not the Jell-O brand) that I used to have in my school lunches, but a little tastier. This batch tasted a little off, but I think that’s because I forgot the vanilla. The chocolate soup that I made before the surgery was nice though. So word of warning: don’t forget the vanilla!

Double Chocolate Pudding
Adapted from Lauren’s Latest
Makes about 5 servings

Ingredients
¼ cup sugar
3 tbsp. corn starch
¼ cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup fat free half & half
1 cup milk
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
½ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions
Sift the sugar, corn starch, cocoa powder, and salt into a cold sauce pan. Whisk ingredients to combine. Slowly pour the half & half and milk into the sauce pan while whisking. This prevents most major clumps (I still ended up with just a few clumps but that’s ok). The mixture will be very foamy, just so you know.

Place the sauce pan over medium/medium-high heat and whisk the chocolate mixture until it begins to steam. Add in the chopped chocolate and stir until it all melts. Keep stirring until the mixture begins to bubble and thicken (this will take about 5-10 minutes depending on how hot you made the stove). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.

Evenly distribute the hot pudding into serving dishes. Place plastic wrap over the dish so it touches the pudding. Refrigerate pudding until it has completely chilled. Serve with whipped cream and chocolate shavings if desired.