Valentine’s day is almost here! This chocolate pudding for two is the perfect romantic dessert. I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for everything chocolate and everything coffee. Combining the two dangerous! This pudding is RICH! Honestly, it’s enough for four people, but if you can’t splurge around February 14th, when can you, right?
It starts with some egg yolks, half & half, and chocolate. Oh, yes, and butter, don’t forget butter!
I simmered the half & half and sugar, mixed in the cornstarch and egg yolks, then took it off the heat. Then I added the rest of the ingredients.
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One tricky thing about making puddings and custards is heating the egg yolks without ending up with rubbery chunks of egg in your dish. There are two things I’ve learned that help yield velvety textured pudding. The first is to temper the egg yolks before you add them to the simmering half & half (I added a little simmering half & half to the egg yolk mixture before adding them to the simmering pot.) The second, and most important thing is to run the pudding though a fine sieve. It’s a little bit more trouble, but the result is well worth the extra effort!
After I finished whisking it through the sieve, I ended up with two mini cocottes worth of delicious, velvety pudding and a sieve full of egg yolk bits.
The Whipped cream was super easy to throw together. I just made sure that the pudding was chilled before I piped it on.
Espresso and chocolate. They were made for each other!
This recipe was adapted from Baking Illustrated
- 1¼ cups half & half
- 3 tbl granulated sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 3 tbl butter, cold and cut into 3 pieces
- 1 tbl cornstarch
- ⅓ cup semi-sweet chocolate, chopped small
- ½ oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped small
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- ½ cup whipping cream
- 4 tsp confectioner's sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp instant espresso
- Set half & half, granulated sugar, and salt to simmer over medium heat.
- Stir occasionally, making sure sugar dissolves.
- While waiting for half & half to simmer, whisk together eggs and cornstarch.
- Whisk eggs and cornstarch until shiny and cornstarch is incorporated.
- When half and half begins to simmer, ladle about ⅓ cup of it into egg mixture.
- Whisk eggs with half & half until just combined, then pour everything into sauce pan.
- Whisk pudding mixture without stopping for about thirty seconds.
- When you see big bubbles start to appear on the surface, remove from heat.
- Off heat, whisk in butter, one tablespoon at a time, then chocolate, than ½ tsp vanilla.
- Immediately pass the pudding through a fine mesh sieve, whisking it through.
- Spoon pudding into two ramekins, mini cocottes, or mugs.
- Cover pudding with saran wrap.
- Push the saran wrap onto the surface of the pudding. It will prevent skin forming.
- Chill for at least an hour.
- Once it is ready to serve, make espresso whipped cream.
- Combine ½ tsp vanilla with espresso powder and allow powder to dissolve.
- Using Kitchen Aid or electric mixer, whip cream, vanilla/espresso mixture, and confectioner's sugar on medium speed until stiff peaks form.
- Pipe, spoon, or dollop whipped cream onto cold puddings.
- Will keep, refrigerated for 2-3 days.
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I could ALMOST taste this as I read the instructions……was it as good as it looked?
It really, truly was! The whipped cream isn’t overly sweet, so it compliments the rich pudding nicely. Thanks for reading!
Looks great and not overly sweet,
Thanks, Terry 🙂
mmm this definitely a romantic dessert, perfect for sharing. 🙂 espresso and chocolate are definitely amazing together. I love the sounds of the whipped cream!
Thanks! You should try the whipped cream!
Lindsey!!! Your recipes and photos are PHENOM. I just recently had to “go gluten free” – and I miss all the yummy things made with flour. 🙁 I need to figure out a GF way to make those lemon cookies!!!
Thanks so much! Gluten free is tricky! Have you tried cup4cup? I heard you can substitute it with all-purpose flour at a 1:1 ratio.