Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD): Chocolate Pudding

This is my first week doing TWD and I am very excited.  I’ve had Dorie Greenspan’s Baking cookbook up on my shelf for over a year now and have baked some out of it, but as with many of my cookbooks in the last year, it has not been put through the paces as much as I would have liked.  I have found two great birthday cake batters in there (Devil’s Food White-out Cake [pg 247]- a chocolate chip cake- and Perfect Party Cake [pf 250]- a lightly lemon flavored white cake with a stupendous crumb) but beyond that ventured very little.  When I stumbled upon TWD one night last week while blog surfing– jumping from one baking blog to another through links– I was delighted.  Accountability- that’s what I needed to explore her book more; so I signed myself up.

At least 2 weeks out of every four I must make the chosen recipe from her cookbook and then post my experience, reaction, etc here.  So here is week one for me.  My next posting will be not be for one or two weeks as I will be out of town.

So lets get down to the pudding…..(you can find the recipe here)

I’ve made chocolate pudding from scratch before from Barefoot Contessa’s cookbook, Parties! (I’ve found a recipe link here for that version) and with success.  I am always delighted with the result, and with anything chocolate, the better quality chocolate you use the better your result.  So this time I pulled out the bittersweet Valrohna bars which I tuck up in my baking cabinet for just such times.

After weighing out my five ounces I thought I should do this recipe right and prep all my ingredients (measured and all) before I got started.  This is not my usual method, but I was multitasking with cobbler in the oven, and one child still awake making periodic visits to the kitchen for one more tuck in.  

A few characteristic flubs (broken yolk while separating eggs [dump, start again], too much sugar in the milk [dump start again], too much milk in the milk [scoop out with a measuring cup because I was tired of dumping out]) and I got down to business.  Of course that wasn’t the end of my mishaps– while taking my bubbling cobblers out of the oven the milk boiled and overflowed the pan, flooding my burner.  Milk was fine but I was a 1/4 cup short now– that would be the 1/4 cup that was now filling my burner plates.  No problem, pour off finished milk, boil 1/4 cup more with a sprinkle of sugar– Good as New!

Over all I found the back and forth between pan and food processor a bit tiring, but I think that is because where I plug my cuisinart in is not very handy to the stove, so I couldn’t, say, pulse AND watch the milk (of course we all know this isn’t why the milk overflowed, but it could have been).  But I understand the reasoning– my arm was not exhausted after whipping up this pudding.  When I’ve made some puddings and pastry creams (which are similar to pudding, and which this same cookbook has a great recipe for (Dark Chocolate Cream page 258) the amount of whisking needed is downright frightening and I end up with flared up tendonitis in my forearms.  Ina Garten’s recipe uses a similar technique but she utilizes the kitchenaid mixer instead of a cuisinart– perhaps that could be used here as well– but in either case I appreciate the modern shortcut.

Yes.  I licked that Cuisinart bowl clean while my finished little puddings were chilling.  And just for the record– I prefer the film on my pudding so I did not cover it.  I love breaking through that film to the smooth depths.

The end product?  Superb.  Very Chocolately. Ultra Chocolately.  I might almost substitute a wee bit of semi-sweet for some of the bittersweet chocolate (I used Valrohna 70% bittersweet).  The richness is a nice way to savour it slowly.  The six little cups (by the way I have to give credit to La Tartine Gourmande for the inspiration to use these little yogurt glasses that had been kicking around my kitchen for a while– too cute to recycle) that it made have lasted a few days as 1/2 of each is enough for each sitting.  

I will be tabbing this recipe for future revisiting, but hopefully won’t flood my stovetop next time with sticky sweetened milk.