chocolate pudding cream tart

I recently spent a delightful afternoon cooking with some adorable cherubs. We tackled a scrumptious, made from scratch chocolate pudding cream tart. It turned out quite delightful, I’d have to say. The best part was watching the cherubs’ first ever attempts at separating egg yolks.

I love taking the freshest ingredients and cooking simple dishes made from scratch. Compared to grabbing a box of Jell-O, this home made pudding is insanely good. Definitely worth the splurge.

Cooking together creates such great food memories. Memories associated with food are so provocative and I love creating them with kids. Did you know that one part of our brain stores memories as facts or data bites (like…. Pi=3.1416 or Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1400 and 92). But like music, our taste and smell memories are stored in another part of our brain as a whole “story”. Once the memory is evoked, your brain brings back the whole story: sights, sounds, smells and emotions.

Just like a time traveler, it takes only one whiff of cinnamon and I am transported back to childhood memories…

I loved visiting my Grandma and Grandpa when I was little. Kid heaven. Their house always smelled like the fresh baked cinnamon bread my Grandma made every morning. I often sat in the kitchen eating homemade cinnamon bread still warm from the oven. My Grandpa and I liked to walk down to his garden. When the blueberry bushes were at the peak of season, we picked juicy, ripe berries still warm from the sun and gobbled them up for breakfast. After breakfast I would play jacks, hopscotch or scramble up to the top of my favorite apple tree in his orchard. I loved to sit in the branches and munch on the sour, not exactly ripe green apples. It seems like only yesterday… and all these memories were all evoked from one little whiff of cinnamon!

I hope we are building good memories with the cherubs today.

It really makes a difference cooking pudding from scratch. Intimidated by cooking from scratch? Well, I resoundingly suggest grabbing one of The Barefoot Contessa’s cookbooks by Ina Garten. Ina loves simple, good food with interesting, complex flavors. In Ina’s own words, “these aren’t recipes with three ingredients that you throw together in five minutes before dinner but are easy enough to make while still having all the deep, delicious flavors.”

Our chocolate pudding cream tart recipe is from Ina’s latest book, How Easy is That?

Chocolate Pudding Cream Tart

By Ina Garten “The Barefoot Contessa”

“How Easy is That?”

Ingredients

4 cups milk

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

5 extra large egg yolks

1 tsp. salt

8 ounces good bittersweet chocolate (bittersweet not semisweet!)

2 TBSP butter, diced

1 TBSP Kahlua coffee liqueur

1 tsp. instant espresso coffee granules

purchased mini graham cracker tarts

whipped cream

shaved chocolate for garnish

Method

Heat the milk in a large saucepan until almost simmering. Turn off the heat.

Place the sugar, cornstarch, egg yolks and salt in a bowl and whip until blended with a hand held beater.

Add one cup of hot milk to the egg mixture and whip again. (This is called “tempering” and is a necessary step so the egg yolks don’t scramble when you add them to the hot milk.)

Add this mixture back to the pan with the hot milk. Turn the heat on medium low and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture is very thick.

It will coat the back of the spoon and look like this.

Now for the flavor! Take the pan off the heat and add the chocolate, butter, instant espresso granules and Kahlua. I bought a whole chunk of bittersweet chocolate at Whole foods and cut it up. You can also buy 4 oz. bars (get two) of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate at most grocery stores. I picked up the instant espresso coffee granules at the market too.

Whisk until shiny and smooth.

Transfer the pudding to a glass or plastic bowl and place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding and chill until firm (about 4-6 hours).

Print

Chocolate Pudding Cream Tart

Ingredients
4 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
5 extra large egg yolks
1 tsp. salt
8 ounces good bittersweet chocolate (bittersweet not semisweet!)
2 TBSP butter, diced
1 TBSP Kahlua coffee liqueur
1 tsp. instant espresso coffee granules
purchased mini graham cracker tarts
whipped cream
shaved chocolate for garnish
Instructions
Heat the milk in a large saucepan until almost simmering. Turn off the heat.
Place the sugar, cornstarch, egg yolks and salt in a bowl and whip until blended with a hand held beater.
Add one cup of hot milk to the egg mixture and whip again. (This is called “tempering” and is a necessary step so the egg yolks don’t scramble when you add them to the hot milk.)
Add this mixture back to the pan with the hot milk. Turn the heat on medium low and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture is very thick.
It will coat the back of the spoon.
Now for the flavor! Take the pan off the heat and add the chocolate, butter, instant espresso granules and Kahlua. I bought a whole chunk of bittersweet chocolate at Whole foods and cut it up. You can also buy 4 oz. bars (get two) of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate at most grocery stores. I picked up the instant espresso coffee granules at the market too.
Whisk until shiny and smooth.
Transfer the pudding to a glass or plastic bowl and place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding and chill until firm (about 4-6 hours).
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Chocolate Pudding Cream Tart

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