Real Food.  You can’t compare anything to it –but it will cost you!  Growing up on My-T-Fine Chocolate Pudding I missed that taste but since I’m only eating clean food in my home these days I can’t bring myself to buy a box of powder called pudding that includes ingredients I abhor.

Sugar, Cornstarch, Cocoa (Processed with Alkali), Food Starch Modified, Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and Soybean Oils, Artificial Flavors, Calcium Carrageenan (Texturizer), Artificial Color (Contains Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Red 40, Blue 1), Milk, Autolyzed Yeast Extract (Contains Glutamate), Soy Flour.

Yes, you’re adding your own milk –which in itself, if you’re not using raw milk, has its own set of poisons– but as far as I can see it’s just another processed food I grew up on that brought a fast and furious sweet tooth into my life and made me believe that I can eat anything I wanted within 10 minutes time by pouring it out of a box, adding milk and stirring.

I missed that taste of My-T-Fine pudding. I tried the organic version and that tasted like crap and I was about to relent and go buy a box of this childhood-in-a-box chocolate fairy dust powder when I came upon a recipe for real homemade, all natural ingredients, chocolate pudding…..  and it cost me big time.  When I say it cost me, it cost like $10 bucks to make 3 servings and a lot of time…… was it worth it? You betcha!

Chocolate pudding is a special treat. It’s not something you’re supposed to eat every day or every week –it’s something you make once in a blue moon like a chocolate cake for a birthday or blueberry muffins for a special Sunday treat.  But growing up in the processed-food-world of my childhood I thought that pudding along with Twinkies, Tasty-cakes, Devil Dogs and Cheez-its were something to have on hand for nightly gorging in front of  I Love Lucy reruns….  and I taught this to my kids when I went grocery shopping and made sure to pick up the packages of Oreo’s, Mallomars, Yodel’s and a Nestle’s Quik box of goodness to wash down with our antibiotic enhanced milk!  But hey, the kids were drinking their milk and this made for good bones! “Got Milk?”

So today I bring you REAL chocolate pudding. The kind that cost $10 bucks to make, that I will not be making very often. The kind that I will savor every bite of and lick off my fingers too…..  This yummy deliciousness is like dying and going to chocolate heaven.

Deep Chocolate Pudding

(my ingredients are in parenthesis)

7 oz. Dark Chocolate (I used 2 organic Trader Joe’s Cocoa Bar’s at 3.5 oz each)

2 Cups of Whole Milk (mine was raw)

1 Cup of Heavy Cream (mine was raw)

3/4 cup of sugar (organic and I used less –about 1/2 cup)

1/4 cup of Cocoa (Cacao Powder Organic raw)

1/4 tsp salt (Mediterranean pink Sea Salt)

1/4 Cup Cornstarch (Organic Cornstarch)

1/4 Cup [1/2 Stick Butter] (Raw with Celtic Sea Salt)

3/4 tsp of vanilla extract (I didn’t use it because I forgot)

Chop chocolate into very fine pieces. Combine chocolate, 1 3/4 cup of milk, cream, sugar, cocoa & salt in a large sauce pan.  Stir vigorously with a whisk over medium heat until mixture simmers and is smooth and thick.  Stir the remaining 1/4 cup of milk with 1/4 cup of cornstarch together and whisk into the chocolate mixture. Simmer for a minute while whisking and scraping sides.  Add butter and cook one minute more. Stir in vanilla.  Makes 5 cups.

 

All I can say is enjoy.  Lick your fingers, lick your spoon. Lick the pot and don’t do this too often!  Not everything in life is meant to be indulged on a constant basis 🙂

Gigi Bowman, Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Clean Food