The first Friday of every month, I blog INA FRIDAYS (all Ina Garten recipes) with a great group of cooks. Scroll down nearly to the bottom to check out the list of blogs participating, then read up and cook some Ina this weekend! ♥♥♥
This post is dedicated to my friend Chaya and all those she loves.
Chocolate pudding. The words bring smiles to faces. Raised eyebrows. We picture kids with big chocolate smiles or toddlers with their fingers in the bowl, going straight from the high chair to the bathtub when the last of the pudding is gone. In the U.S. and maybe in quite a few other places, those words also bring to mind a box that looks something like this:
And I have no beef with that box, having opened it a time or two myself when my kids were little. In fact, it took a few years of cooking for me to realize that our simple box pudding was basically a bit quicker and not-so-rich version of pastry cream--in the vanilla flavor, I mean. Scratch, or homemade, pudding — pastry cream’s luscious, but spoonable poor relation — is worth the extra few minutes it takes to make; there’s no doubt. The chocolate version is, if possible, even better. (Click here for a bona fide Emeril chocolate pastry cream recipe. Scroll down for link to Ina’s pudding recipe.) Instead of having the sugar, cornstarch, and flavoring (vanilla extract or real chocolate) dried up in the box how many eons ago, you add them yourself, fresh, in two shakes of a stick.
