Creamy Mocha Pudding
Why This Recipe Works
Homemade chocolate pudding often suffers from either lackluster chocolate flavor, caused by a dearth of chocolate, or a grainy texture, caused by too much cocoa butter. We found that using a moderate amount of bittersweet chocolate in combination with unsweetened cocoa and espresso powder helped us achieve maximum chocolate flavor. For thickening, cornstarch proved the right choice, and using mostly milk and just half a cup of heavy cream, along with three egg yolks, ensured that our pudding had a silky smooth texture. Salt and vanilla enhanced the chocolate flavor even more.
Ingredients
Print Shopping List| 2 | teaspoons vanilla extract |
| 1 | teaspoon espresso powder |
| ½ | cup sugar (3 1/2 ounces) |
| 3 | tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa |
| 2 | tablespoons cornstarch |
| 1 | tablespoon Kahlúa |
| ¼ | teaspoon salt |
| 3 | large egg yolks |
| ½ | cup heavy cream |
| 2 ¼ | cups whole milk |
| ¼ | cup brewed coffee |
| 5 | tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces |
| 4 | ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine |
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Instructions
Serves 6We recommend using one of our favorite dark chocolates-Callebaut Intense Dark Chocolate, L-60-40NV, or Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar. If you like, garnish the pudding with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.
1. Stir together vanilla and espresso powder in bowl; set aside. Whisk sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, Kahlúa, and salt together in large saucepan. Whisk in yolks and cream until fully incorporated, making sure to scrape corners of saucepan. Whisk in milk and coffee until incorporated.
2. Place saucepan over medium heat; cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thickened and bubbling over entire surface, 5 to 8 minutes. Cook 30 seconds longer, remove from heat, add butter and chocolate, and whisk until melted and fully incorporated. Whisk in vanilla mixture.
3. Pour pudding through fine-mesh strainer into bowl. Press lightly greased parchment paper against surface of pudding, and place in refrigerator to cool, at least 4 hours. Whisk pudding briefly and serve.
Recipe Testing
The Gritty Truth about Cocoa Butter
As we developed our pudding recipe, we found that there was a limit to how much bittersweet chocolate we could add before the texture turned gritty- but that we could continue to add chocolate in the form of cocoa powder without affecting smoothness. Why should this be the case? The culprit in causing grittiness, it turns out, is cocoa butter- and solid chocolate has far more of it than cocoa powder. Chocolate is manufactured so that its fat remains solid at room temperature but literally melts in the mouth. But when melted chocolate is allowed to re-solidify, the crystalline structure of its cocoa butter is reorganized. It becomes more stable and melts at higher-than-body temperature. If present in high enough amounts, this more-stable form of cocoa butter can create the grainy mouthfeel we detected in the pudding.
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