Ohhhhhhhhh Heavenly Pudding

Can pudding be heavenly? I choose to think that it can thank you very much.

Pudding, specifically Chocolate pudding, was one of my very favorite desserts when I was growing up. It was a good day when we had pudding for dessert. You know, covered with whip cream. Ok, Ok, in our house NOTHING was covered with whip cream cuz, you know, we ate healthy and all that. No lovely, soft, preservative filled white bread for us. Sniff, sniff. I had to go to friends houses to get that. Yes Mom, I ate WONDER WHITE BREAD at Jane Ingolia's house. Shiver.

Hmmm, I got off track there thinking about the lovely, soft white bread...which I would never eat now.

So, Chocolate pudding was one of my favorite desserts. And not the instant pudding. No, no, no it had to be the "cook and serve" kind. You had to put forth a little effort with that and it tasted so much better. And when I was old enough to be trusted with standing in front of the stove and stirring it was my job to make the pudding. Stirring, stirring, stirring until it was bubbling and then pouring it into the Pyrex bowls. You know, the bowls like this one....
Yes, yes, I know that mine are a tad on the "weathered" side but give me a break. I use them just about every day for one reason or another. But, I can't have Chocolate Pudding unless they are in these.

Where was I? Oh yes, so I love chocolate pudding. I love it more than white bread. I love it more than BLTs. I love it more than a good glass of wine......you didn't really believe that last one did you? But red wine and Chocolate Pudding do go well together.

Do you know what this is? Well do ya, punk (sorry Dirty Harry overcame me for a moment there). This is Chocolate Pudding of course. But not just any chocolate pudding. No, this was made totally from scratch. Not a box in sight. Ohhhhhhh be still my beating heart. And it was so easy!!! Not much more work than if you opened up a box of pudding. And it tastes soooooo much better. Lovely, creamy texture. Lovely deep chocolate taste with none of the faintly artificial flavor that can be in boxed chocolate pudding.

I found the recipe over at Cooking From Scratch but I will write it out here for you as well just because I am super nice and I like you all. One of these days I will figure out how to put tabs on this here blog and then I will have a place to put recipes. But....not yet.

Of course, you have to have the pudding with a generous amount of whipped cream. Sorry Mom but it was NOT Cool Whip. It was....that stuff that you spray out of the can OK. You know, the stuff that you spray directly into your mouth, ummmm, not that we do that here in this household you know because we are all about cleanliness and hygiene and that would just be gross. Uh, yeah.

And this is what you get when you sit with your hubby and savor the pudding over scintillating conversation.......Oh who am I kidding, I inhaled this stuff and it was delicious. And there are two more bowls of it out in the refrigerator so there will be more pudding love tomorrow.

Homemade Chocolate Pudding
yield: 4 servings

1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup good quality cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 TBS cornstarch
2 1/2 cups milk ( not skim if you can help it)
1 tsp vanilla

Sift the sugar, cocoa powder, salt and cornstarch into a medium sauce pan. Mix the milk and vanilla. Pour just enough of the milk into the dry ingredients to make a loose paste ( at first I wrote "loose past" but I think that is a topic for another post). Once the dry ingredients are all moistened, pour in the rest of the milk and whisk until well mixed.

Cook over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally, until the pudding just about reaches a boil and is thick and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool slightly before pouring into the serving bowls. Remember to put plastic wrap over the pudding and actually touching the surface of the pudding if you don't want that skin thing to form. If you don't care then omit the plastic wrap.

The original recipe says serve warm or cold but cold is the only way. Let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours and then EAT!

Enjoy!!