Chocolate Pudding

I am working on a writing project that I could be doing lots with but I don't give myself enough time to work on. Yesterday, I thought I'd set aside my blogs for later in the day and work on the project. I did better but I still goof off way too much. I had forgetten my blogs in the process since I always do them early in the day. Not a problem - I'll do it at home, except I forgot my computer was completely eaten by a virus and keeps having to go back to the shop while they try to figure out how to restore it to it's former glory (the computer is about 6 months old and this worm/trojan thing went right through our anti-virus software and completely ate our windows - my mom keeps telling vindow viping jokes since Viper is our software). Needless to say, no blogging was done yesterday and I am sorry. To make up for it I will do two posts today.

With everything going on and the crummy weather, I decided it was a chocolate pudding night. I love hot chocolate pudding. I usually make Jello cook and serve but I really want to start making things from scratch. My aunt used to tell me about making real pudding with flour (Jello uses cornstarch). Flour is a more stable thickener where cornstarch breaks down and makes your pudding watery over time. I will say it had good flavor but there was a major texture difference. I make flour gravies that are great but this pudding was a little gritty. It could be that I used cocoa powder instead of unsweetened chocolate so I may be posting this recipe again with some changes (if I waited for every recipe to be perfect I don't think I'd post ever again).

Chocolate Pudding
6 TB cocoa powder (or 2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted in pan before adding milk)
2 cups milk
1 cup sugar
4 TB flour
2 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Mix cocoa and milk in a saucepan. Heat on medium to med-low temperature until hot but not boiling. Mix remaining ingredients together in a bowl with a whisk until smooth. Add to hot milk and whisk until fully encorporated. Let cook until thickened. Remove from heat.
Serve hot or let chill to serve cold.
The great thing about homemade pudding is you can add your own flavors - subsitute almond, orange, peppermint (anything) for the vanilla. Just remember that the stronger the extract flavor, the less you need.