When I was little my mom often made Jell-O pudding for dessert. Four steaming cups of chocolate, butterscotch or tapioca pudding, sometimes topped with a melting scoop of Hudsonville vanilla ice cream. It is safe to say that I didn’t even know that you could make pudding without the Jell-O box until adulthood. (aside… check out this site about the Jell-O museum and history - really funny)

Over time, I have grown to absolutely love all things pudding: cinnamony rice pudding with white raisins, soft bread puddings, corn pudding, yorkshire pudding, sweet tomato pudding with roast beef, big tapioca pudding…the list goes on. I have yet to meet a pudding I didn’t like. (I like saying that which is why I have never tried blood pudding because I fear it might be the first on my dislike list.)

Now is when I get real and fess up. On this blog, I am trying very hard to admit who I am and not pretend to be the ultimate Foodie that I want to be. Until last night, I had never made regular old chocolate or vanilla pudding from scratch. Partly, I continued to make Jell-O due to laziness. The microwave directions are just so easy. I also think that I had just not considered that I could make more delicious pudding from scratch. In my world, due to habit, homemade chocolate pudding was just off my radar.

The more I began to think about my bad pudding habit, the funnier it became that I had continued on for so long. For the past four years, I worked at Vosges Haut-Chocolat, a high-end chocolate company. And, if there is anything I am a food snob about, it is chocolate. Jell-O chocolate pudding was the last remaining low-brow chocolate in my life.

So, last night, I turned a corner. Thanks to starting Whipped, I am taking the time to follow my Foodie dreams. I took a basic pudding recipe out of the Joy of Cooking and adapted it to be more chocolatey and less sweet using only the best ingredients. And the result…. wow.
I am not turning back.
Song long Jell-O.

Grown-up Dark Chocolate Pudding

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Slowly stir in sugar and 1 3/4 cups milk and salt. Heat to slight boil. Dissolve cornstarch in 1/4 cup milk. Slowly stir the cornstarch mixture into the chocolate mixture. Cook over boiling water for 5-8 minutes stirring constantly until quite thick. Turn off heat and continue to stir. When slightly cool, stir in vanilla. Pour into 4 serving dishes and cool.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 6:52 pm and is filed under Desserts & Sweets. 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.