Hasty Chocolate Pudding

I have never before made homemade pudding. I grew up eating boxed instant Jello pudding, which I do love. I always wondered though how pudding is made when it’s not made from a box. Well now I know!

Here are the instructions from All Recipes:

Hasty Chocolate Pudding

½ cup white sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk together the sugar, cocoa and cornstarch. Whisk in milk a little at a time so the mixture does not have any dry lumps.

Place in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes on high. Stir then cook at 1 minute intervals, stirring between intervals for 2 to 4 minutes, until shiny and thick. Stir in vanilla.

Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming and chill in the refrigerator. Serve cold.

It took me less than 10 minutes to mix together all the ingredients. I popped it in the microwave for 3 minutes then stirred. It was a bit foamy and still pretty thin. Back in the microwave for another minute. The pudding was definitely starting to thicken up and get shiny. Stirred again, then back in the microwave for another minute. Stirred again. It’s almost there but still a little thin so I put it back in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Now it is done. I give it a good stir all around and then stir in the vanilla. It looked so good and it smelled like brownies, and yes I tasted it. You know those molten chocolate cake deserts that practically every restaurant has? Well the hot pudding tasted just like the molten chocolate center of those cakes. It was fantastic!

I let the pudding cool in the refrigerator overnight and then checked on it this morning. The consistency is different from boxed pudding. Boxed pudding is much thinner and creamier. My homemade pudding was very thick, almost like custard. I was almost scared to try it because I seriously do not like custard. It’s the texture – I can’t stand it! I tasted it after all and it does not taste like custard, it tastes like pudding. I packed some in my lunch today – yum!

The Economics: I won’t bore you with ALL the math, but to make Hasty Chocolate Pudding it will cost you $0.09 for the sugar, $0.05 for the cornstarch, and $0.16 for the cocoa powder. I treated the vanilla as a de minimis cost and I left out the cost of the milk because you will use two cups of milk whether you make this recipe or a box of instant pudding. That brings the total to $0.30 for 4 servings of pudding. A box of instant Jello pudding is usually around $0.75. Not bad!

So is it worth it? I think the best part about this recipe is that you probably have all the ingredients on hand in your kitchen right now. It does not take any special tools or fancy ingredients. If you had a craving for chocolate pudding one night you could whip it right up!

When you make pudding from scratch you know exactly what’s in it. The ingredients are whole and all natural.

While the cost savings isn’t spectacular money-wise, percentage-wise it is great. You are saving over 50% of the cost of a box of instant pudding by making it at home.

I will definitely be adding this recipe to my recipe book and I plan to try out more homemade pudding recipes. If anyone has any they would like to share please let me know!