For Valentine's Day, one food writer wanted to offer something simpler than a decadent meal or a rich dessert. Classic chocolate pudding, the kind that is chocolaty but not overly heavy, fit the goal. The recipe that emerged takes 22 minutes and requires no eggs, butter, cream, food processor, or oven. It is adapted from John Scharffenberger of Scharffenberger Chocolate, and the writer says it has been adjusted over 16 years to suit personal preferences.
The writer describes a search through dozens of recipes. Modern chocolate puddings often add cream, butter, and egg yolks, and are made in food processors, lightened with whipped egg whites, or baked in ramekins in water baths. The writer argues these are pot-de-cremes, pastry creams, or souffles, not pudding. A recipe from someone the writer admires required a double-boiler, a saucepan, and multiple trips to a food processor. It contained egg yolks, a whole egg, butter, cocoa powder, and bittersweet chocolate. The result was good but not mindblowing.
The writer's mother has long said making chocolate pudding from scratch is pointless. She once tried to replace My-T-Fine boxed pudding with a homemade version when the writer and sister were young. It took forever and tasted exactly like the boxed stuff, so she vowed never to make it again. The writer says the mother spared her an "I told you so" after the complicated recipe turned out merely good.
The simpler recipe came from item #43 in the "sweets" subsection of the writer's Cook This list. It was a three-step, 22-minute chocolate pudding from John Scharffenberger that Luisa had posted about over a year earlier. The writer made adjustments and now shares the recipe. The writer suggests that if the mother had tried this version, she might be providing the sourdough starter.
The recipe got fresh photos in 2024, but 2008 originals are included for nostalgia.
One year ago, the site featured a green tea cookie with white chocolate filling.
Ingredients
1/4 cup (30 grams) cornstarch
3 tablespoons (15 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 cups (680 grams) whole milk (for best taste) or 2% milk
6 ounces (180 grams) bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (or 1 cup dark chocolate chips)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
For the silkiest pudding texture, you can pour this mixture through a fine-mesh strainer.
In the fridge: Distribute among individual pudding cups or one large serving bowl, and chill until it is cool and set, about 2 to 3 hours for individual pudding cups and 4 to 5 hours for a large bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap so that no skin forms, unless you're an oddball like me who likes pudding skin.
Do ahead: This pudding keeps for 3 days in the fridge but nobody I know has ever allowed it to last that long.
Notes: Over the last, whoa, 16 years, this recipe has had several updates. In 2013, I got rid of the pesky double-boiler step, that also made this take forever to cook. Later in the year, I started deepening the chocolate flavor by replacing an ounce of the bittersweet chocolate with unsweetened but I ditched this a few years later by adding some unsweetened cocoa powder. It's optional, but if you want more chocolate intensity, this is an easy way. A couple more notes:
Total Time: 15 minutes active, plus a few hours cooling and setting time
Servings: 6
Editorial Notes