Triple-Chocolate Pudding

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Chances are, you may never have had an authentic, homemade, from-scratch pudding. It’s rare to find it on a restaurant menu, so it may be a complete unknown to you. Homemade pudding has a rich texture and a comfort-food quality that is not present in a mix or ready-to-eat version.

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Makes 6 servings

I found this recipe for Triple-Chocolate Pudding on Martha’s site. It has such a deep chocolatiness, that you’ll feel completely immersed in its flavor from the first spoonful. It calls for a bit of rum, which adds a subtle depth to the finished pudding, with little, if any, assertion of its own character.

I have a couple tips to help you be successful with this recipe.

Chocolate is somewhat delicate, and a double boiler is a sensible way to deal with it. However, so is a microwave. Although microwaves are often seen as weapons of mass destruction, in the right hands, a microwave can provide an uneasy détente that can safely agitate chocolate into a liquid state.

Put the chocolate in a glass measuring cup and place it in the microwave. Nuke it for 1 minute at 30% power. Stir. Let the chocolate rest. You’ll find that not much seems to happen and stirring seems pointless. Repeat the nuke-stir-rest cycle, reducing the duration each time. With each blast, you’ll find that stirring will be more productive. The more stirable the chocolate is, the more time you should spend stirring (as much as 30 seconds, perhaps), the longer your pause ought to be (maybe as long as a minute), and the shorter your nuke duration should become (down to 10-15 seconds maybe). Continue this process until the chocolate is melted. This is important: you want your final holdouts of solid chocolate to melt as you’re stirring or as the chocolate is resting, not in the microwave. As you get close to this state, you have to be very careful not to over-nuke it.

Once the chocolate is melted, add the (room temperature) butter, and stir until incorporated.

A second tip: you can’t take your whisking too seriously while the pudding’s boiling. Make sure to vigorously whisk the bottom and sides of the pan. I prefer to continue whisking for a while after removing the pan from the stove, just to ensure that residual heat in the pan isn’t going to scorch the pudding.

Here are the ingredients and directions for Triple Chocolate Pudding, abbreviated.

For the original recipe, see MarthaStewart.com.

3 Tbs unsalted butter, 4½ oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, 1 oz unsweetened chocolate, 3 cups whole milk, 1 cup sugar, ¼ cup cocoa, 3 Tbs cornstarch, ⅛ tsp salt, 3 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk, ¼ cup heavy cream, 1 Tbs dark rum, 1 tsp vanilla, Whipped cream, Chocolate shavings

Melt and mix the chocolate and butter. Heat the milk. Combine the sugar, cocoa, starch, salt, eggs, and cream. Temper it with half the milk, then combine with the remainder of the milk. Boil 30 seconds. Mix in the melted chocolate, rum, and vanilla. Cover and chill. Serve with cream and shavings.