Something Easy and Chocolate

What do you do when you suddenly crave for something sweet? For me, that happens more often than I'd like, and when I'm too lazy to make something fancy, I turn to this easy chocolate pudding. I'd like to think of it as the "little black dress" of desserts -- you can make this in a pinch when you're pressed for time or stuck for ideas, and you can also jazz it up with whatever flavours you desire, i.e. accessorize it.

I've made this enough times to finally have my favourite version of the recipe, which I'm sharing today. In the future I'll probably tweak it some more just because I like experimenting, and I'll share any successful renditions of this recipe then. :)

Easy Chocolate Pudding
adapted from All Recipes and Hungry Girl Por Vida

1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder
3 tbsp malt powder
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 1/2 cups milk
2 tbsp salted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a saucepan, sift the sugar, cocoa powder, malt powder, and cornstarch to remove any lumps. Whisk the mixture well, making sure everything is combined.

2. Place the pan over medium heat, and slowly add the milk while constantly whisking to combine everything.

3. Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly. When the mixture is thick (enough to coat the back of a metal spoon), remove the pan from the heat.

4. Stir in the butter and vanilla extract.

5. Pour into preferred serving dishes, and let cool to room temperature. If you don't like pudding skin, press a piece of plastic wrap on top of the pudding (make sure the plastic touches the surface). Chill the pudding in the fridge until serving time.

Happy Anniversary!

 It just occurred to me today that this blog is now 1 year old! Documenting all of my baking endeavours has been an interesting experience, and one that I still need to improve upon - especially my photography & food styling skills. However, it has been a lot of fun, and I plan on continuing indefinitely. :)

It's always nice to have cake for celebrations, so I present to you a chocolate bundt cake I recently made for a dinner party. This cake was super easy to make, i.e. no mixer required, which is something I always appreciate. The result is a very light, moist and chocolatey cake, thanks to the addition of yogurt and lots of chocolate, plus coffee to help bring out the chocolate flavour. Tastewise, it is not very sweet, so the ganache is a welcome addition to help sweeten the cake. However, at the party we served the cake alongside vanilla ice cream sundaes, so for that purpose the ganache could have been omitted. 

Chocolate Bundt Cake
yields 1 10-inch cake
adapted from Food and Wine (via Cookie Madness)

Cake:
56 grams (2 oz) bittersweet chocolate
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 large egg (at room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup strong-brewed coffee
1 cup buttermilk (at room temperature - I used plain yogurt)

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease a 10-inch bundt pan and coat evenly with some cocoa powder.

2. Melt the chocolate in the microwave. Let cool. Add the oil and sugar, whisk in until smooth, then whisk in the egg and vanilla extract.

3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.

4. Add half of the dry ingredients from step 3 to the chocolate mixture (step 2) along with 1/2 cup coffee and 1/2 cup buttermilk. Whisk until smooth.

5. Add the remaining dry ingredients, coffee, and buttermilk to the mixture. Mix again until the batter is smooth.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the lower third of the oven for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

7. Cool on a metal rack for 10 minutes before inverting the cake.

Glaze:
85 grams (3 oz) bittersweet chocolate
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 tbsp corn syrup (I used Lyle's Golden Syrup)
1/2 tbsp unsalted butter

1. Bring the heavy cream to a boil in a saucepan.

2. In a bowl, combine the chocolate, syrup, and butter. Pour the hot cream over the mixture and let everything melt together for about 5 minutes. Whisk the mixture until it's smooth.

3. Allow the ganache to cool for about 5 minutes until it is thick, smooth and at a pourable consistency.

4. Pour glaze over cake and let it set for at least 30 minutes.

The Good Stuff

This past Christmas, I received a box of Cacao Barry Dark Chocolate Couverture Origine “Tanzanie” (what a mouthful!) from my boss. I don’t have easy access to fancy chocolates, and having a college student’s budget prevents me from splurging too often, so this was a much-appreciated gift. Since I have a limited supply, I wanted to use the chocolate wisely and not be wasteful!

When I tasted this 75% dark chocolate, I noticed how fruity it is, and it has a sour aftertaste of which I’m not a fan. For Valentine’s Day, I used it to make this mousse, but due to the nature of this particular recipe, the sour taste was highlighted even more, so needless to say I didn’t have very much of it. I figured since I don’t like the taste of the chocolate on its own, I should complement it with other flavours that could tone down the fruity notes. I was in the mood to make chocolate chip cookies, so I decided to go with that, even though CCC’s are simple and don’t require “the good stuff” to make them delicious!