Chocolate Pudding Dessert
This dessert is the perfect combination of chocolate and cream cheese, sweet and salty, brown and white, etc. If you’re looking for something delicious and impressive, this is the way to go. I like to make homemade chocolate pudding because it tastes so good, but you can also use instant pudding. It’s not quite as fabulous, but it’s faster. I do it both ways. Check it out!
Heat the milk until hot to the touch (3-4 minutes in the microwave).
Combine the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in a 6 quart pot.
Separate the eggs. You won’t need the whites for this recipe, so throw them out, or use them for something else. If you’re not sure how to separate eggs, here’s a quick tutorial.
Gently crack your egg, and slowly open it over a bowl. Be careful to let the white fall into the bowl while using the shell to keep the yolk from going with it, and watch that no pieces of shell fall in. Dump the yolk back and forth between the halves of shell, allowing more of the white to go into the bowl. Then put the yolk in a separate bowl.
Put the yolks in a 2 cup measure or bowl, and whisk them with a fork.
Pour 3/4 of the hot milk (about 3 cups) into the pot with the sugar and cocoa, then whisk until combined. Set aside for a minute.
Rapidly whisking the eggs with a fork, slowly drizzle approximately half of the remaining cup of hot milk into them. You need to be very careful, so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs in milk. (Since this was a two-handed process, I couldn’t get a photo.) Heat the last half cup of milk in the microwave on high heat, for another 30-45 seconds, and repeat the drizzle/stir procedure with the egg yolks.
Now, just to be extra sure that you don’t have any scrambled egg lumps in the pudding, pour the milk/egg mixture through a strainer into another cup. Now set it aside for a few minutes.
Whisking constantly, bring the chocolate mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Then remove it from the heat.
Whisking rapidly, drizzle the egg/milk mixture into the pudding. Continuing to whisk constantly, return the pudding to the heat and bring back to a boil.
Remove the pudding from the heat for good, and add the butter and vanilla. Don’t stir until the butter has melted. The pudding will be starting to set, and you don’t want to over-stir. Simply fold in with a spatula to completely incorporate the butter and vanilla.
Transfer the hot pudding to a clean bowl, and immediately cover with plastic, allowing the plastic to touch the pudding. This prevents the pudding from forming a skin. Refrigerate 2 hours, or until completely cool and set.
Now, make the crust. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Combine the flour, butter, salt, and chopped nuts in a bowl, and cut together with a fork until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
Press the mixture into the bottom of an ungreased 13 x 9 inch baking pan. I was being fancy, so I put half the crust in a pie plate, and the other half was divided evenly between 4 small baking dishes. They were each 4 inches in diameter.
I was worried about getting the dessert out of the baking dishes without ruining them, so I lined the little baking dishes with parchment.
I pressed the crust on top of the parchment.
Bake the crust(s) at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool completely.
When the pudding and crust are ready, make the cream cheese filling.
Combine the powdered sugar and cream cheese, and beat until smooth.
Add the thawed whipped topping and continue to beat until combined and creamy.
Spread the cream cheese filling on top of the crust.
Gently spoon the pudding onto the cream cheese filling.
Smooth it out.
Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
When ready to serve, just cut and top with whipped cream.
To remove them from the baking dishes, I put them in the freezer for 30 minutes. I ran a knife all the way around the edge, then used it to gently pry up the dessert.
Ta~Da!
- 1½ cups flour
- ¾ cup butter
- 1½ cups finely chopped pecans
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups sugar
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa
- 5 tablespoons cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 cups hot milk
- 5 egg yolks
- ¾ cup butter
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- ~ or ~
- 2 packages (3 ounces each) instant chocolate pudding
- 3 cups cold milk
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 8 ounces cream cheese (softened)
- 8 ounces whipped topping from freezer case (thawed)
- Heat 4 cups of milk in the microwave on high power for 3 or 4 minutes.
- Combine the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in a six quart pot.
- Whisk the egg yolks in a 2 cup measure or bowl.
- Pour ¾ of the hot milk into the sugar/cocoa mixture, and whisk.
- Very slowly, pour half the remaining cup of milk into the egg yolk, whisking briskly the entire time. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with scrambled egg in your milk.
- Heat the last half cup of milk for another 40 seconds.
- Now repeat the procedure of pouring the rest of the milk into the yolks.
- Now pour the milk/egg mixture through a strainer, just in case you got a few scrambles.
- Over medium-high heat, bring the cocoa mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat, and slowly pour the strained egg mixture into the chocolate pudding, stirring briskly.
- Return to heat, and bring back to a boil.
- Add the butter and vanilla, and let sit until it melts. Then stir it just to combine. It wants to set up, and too much stirring will prevent that.
- Pour the pudding into a clean bowl, and place plastic right on it.
- Refrigerate several hours, until completely cool and set up.
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
- Combine the butter, flour, chopped nuts, and salt until it has a texture like coarse corn meal.
- Press into a 13 X 9 inch baking pan.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.
- Remove from oven and cool completely.
- Combine softened cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth.
- Add whipped topping, and blend until smooth and creamy.
- Spread over cooled crust.
- Taking care not to stir, and manipulating it as little as possible, spoon the pudding onto the cream filling. Gently spread it to cover evenly.
- Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
- Serve with whipped cream.
- It takes about 35 minutes to prepare this dessert, but that doesn't count the cooling down and refrigeration time. Make this a day before you want to eat it to allow for that.
- Combine 2 packages (3 ounces each) instant pudding with 3 cups cold milk and mix according to the package direction. Don’t do this if you already made the homemade pudding.
Serve with whipped cream.