Jamie Starke bio photo

Jamie Starke

I develop for my career, but I also develop for fun, and whenever I think it can solve a problem I'm having. This has lead me to create side projects, such as Rental Map and BusTimes, among others.

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Chocolate pudding

I found this recipe at Allrecipes.com. I tried many recipes before I found this one.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 2 3/4 cups milk
  • 2 tablespoons margarine or butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, stir together sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt.
  2. Place over medium heat, and stir in milk.
  3. Bring to a boil and cook, stiring constantly, until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. I seem to find that boiling gently for 2 minutes seems to work well.
  4. Remove from heat, and stir in margarine and vanilla.
  5. Let cool 5 minutes. I have found that allowing it to cool for about 5 minutes seems to have it at a nice temperature that is not scalding hot, but has thickened to a decent degree.

Notes

A few things that I figured out along the way:

  • Some recipes add chocolate chips. For those that like their pudding sweet the chocolate chips will make it more sweet. From personal experience, it seems to make it too sweet, at least for my taste. A few of the recipes I tried were so sweet I was unable to finish a serving.
  • Although I recomment letting the mixture boil for a few minutes and cooling for 5 minutes, increasing the amount of time that the mixture boils and cools increase how thick the pudding is. Conversely, the opposite will decrease how thick the pudding is. Adjusting these will help you figure out the perfect combination for your personal taste.