Mocha Pudding

A few weeks ago, I had promised the kids that I would make them a nice dessert, something chocolatey and pudding-like. They were rather excited and they asked if I could make them something Mocha instead. Mocha has become the flavour of the month with the kids and truth be told, they like little sips of coffee as well!
I had planned to make it one weekend but then the 'lazy monster' took over and I apologised to the kids and said that I would make it another day.

A few days later, I took the kids out for dessert as The Lovely Wife had a dinner date with some friends. We ended up going to TGIF and wanted their Mocha Mud Pie but as luck would have it, they were out. They had something called Mini Delights which were actually a variety of small puddings served in shot glasses. I told my kids not to bother with them as firstly, the servings were too small and secondly, I could probably make something better. They both agreed and we ended up just having the Sundae which I have to say was pretty darned disappointing. As we left the restaurant, they both asked me if I would make them the puddings that I had promised soon and I promised I would.



I was actually going to modify the tried and tested Chocolate Pastry Cream Recipe from a previous Daring Bakers challenge. Or maybe even the Chocolate Custard recipe from my Chocolate Trifle.

The issue that I had with both those recipes was that they both needed egg yolks and I didn't want to waste the whites. So I surfed the web and found this recipe that used Whole eggs for the custard! I've never used whole eggs for custards or custard like puddings and I was a little worried how it would turn out.



I modified the recipe slightly and this is what I came up with:

Ingredients
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 2Tbsp coffee powder
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 3Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 100g. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Method

Combine milk, coffee and heavy cream in a heavy, medium saucepan and heat up to just under a boil. Meanwhile in mixing bowl combine cornstarch and sugar and sift in cocoa powder. Whisk until blended. In another mixing bowl, whisk egg until blended, then add to sugar mixture and whisk until well combined.

Slowly add half the hot milk mixture to egg mixture to temper it while whisking continuously. Pour egg mixture back into pan with rest of the milk mixture and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture has become very thick . This should take about 7 minutes, depending on how cold your eggs are.

Remove from the heat and add in the chocolate and let heat of the custard mixture melt it. When the chocolate has melted, whisk together until smooth. Spoon the custard into cups right away and then chill for several hours.

I took a leaf out of the TGIF Menu and chopped some Snickers Bars and added them to the top of the pudding as a garnish. This gave the dessert and extra bite, a bit of crunch and more of a yummy factor.



The top of the custard formed a little bit of a skin the longer it stayed in the fridge but the Snickers on top more than disguised that. It was kind of nice to have a bit of a thicker top as well.


The verdict? The kids loved it! They liked the fact that the coffee wasn't overpowering and that the coffee flavour was more of an undertone and more noticeable as an aftertaste.



Both the kids had two servings at one go and then looked forward to having the dessert at every meal till there was no more. After the last one was finished, both of them looked at me and asked if there was any more. When the reply came that everything had been polished off, they immediately asked when I was going to make this again!