New-Style Old-Fashioned Chocolate Pudding

I’m not sure I can explain the sudden interest in pudding. To be perfectly frank, I don’t even like pudding that much... too creamy and smooth, like yogurt and ice cream. These things need chunks to be good. In our house, we describe this feeling about a particular food as, “I like it, but it’s not my favorite.” This is Sophia’s verbiage, which we all seem to have adopted. Amazingly, I have never heard her say that she just flat-out doesn’t like something. I will have messed up lots of things, but food I’ve done well!

Regardless of my feelings about smooth foods, we all seem to have a mighty sweet tooth this winter (sweet teeth?), and the ingredients in pudding are largely pantry items. Ergo, my second attempt this month at homemade pudding.

Today’s pudding recipe is courtesy Bon Appétit magazine and is a low-fat, healthy version of traditional chocolate pudding. Thus the “new-style” I suppose. First, a few ingredient notes: I used 2% organic milk, instead of 1%, because that’s what we had on hand, and I used Droste Dutch-processed cocoa.

I made this for afternoon snack for Ben and Sophia, and they both gave it four stars. We ate it warm out of the pan, and Ben contends it will be five-star pudding later cold out of the fridge. 

My feeling is four stars either way. The texture is wonderfully silky and smooth, and it was very simple and easy. Foolproof, you might say. However, the flavor smacks too much of cocoa powder and not enough of chocolate. Surely you’ve had the experience of mixing up a cup of hot cocoa using cocoa powder, Hershey’s or otherwise, and finding it insufficiently chocolate-y. I think I’d prefer the splurge of real dark chocolate. However, this was an easy and light treat, so I’m sure it will make its way back into circulation one day.