Vintage Love: Chocolate Pudding

While flipping through my cookbooks to try to find a desert to make for my sister who was coming to visit, an old piece of notebook paper fell out of one of the books. It had no title, but I immediately recognized the chocolate stained paper (and the bad handwriting).  It was written by me sometime in 1995 maybe, copied from the Hershey’s 1934 Cookbook, using the conversion table to convert from “Chocolate Squares”, which were never available where I lived as a child, to Cocoa and butter. The cookbook is a 1971 re-print of the original 1934 edition. If you love chocolate, you must try the recipes in the book. It’s simply chocolate done right.

My sister isn’t a fan of chocolate, but one chocolate dessert which I remember making many times with her when we were children is the Hershey’s Cornstarch Chocolate Pudding. I love this recipe for so many reasons, mainly the simplicity and the wonderful memories of standing with the whisk or wooden spoon and stirring endlessly in hope of having this heavenly desert before bedtime.

Grab your children, friends or neighbors and try this. You will not be disappointed (at least until there is no more left).

Ingredients:

I have used less sugar than called for, since it is a bit too sweet for my liking with a full cup.

- 9 Tbsp Unsweetened Cocoa

- 2 Tbsp Butter

- 3 cups Milk

- 2/3 cup Sugar

- ¼ cup Cornstarch

- ¼ tsp. Salt

- 1 tsp. Vanilla extract

Preparation (Aprrox. 10 mins)

Mix cocoa, sugar, corn starch and salt in a saucepan. Add in milk, and 1 ½ Tbsp of the butter and turn on heat to medium. Stir or whisk constantly for about 5 min or until mixture starts to boil vigorously. Lower heat and continue stirring until mixture thickens. It should be thick enough that if you dip a spoon into it, and swipe your finger down the middle, the cleared space remains clear with no chocolate seeping in.

Take off the heat, add in the vanilla and the rest of the butter. Give it one final stir.

Put in small bowls. Serves about 6.  Place plastic wrap on top of each bowl, allowing it to touch the surface of the pudding. This prevents the film or ‘skin’ from forming.

Allow to cool for 2-3 hours.

Enjoy!