Home › Puddings and Pudding Sauces › Chocolate Cornstarch Pudding
Chocolate Cornstarch Pudding
2 Cups Milk 3 Tablespoons Cornstarch 1-3 Teaspoon Salt 1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla 2 Tablespoons Sugar 3 Tablespoons Corn Syrup 1 Square Chocolate Melt chocolate over hot water. Scald 1½ cups of milk, add the corn syrup.
Mix sugar, salt and cornstarch together, add 1/2 cup of cold milk to make a smooth mixture; add gradually to the scalded milk, and then add all the liquid to the melted chocolate, stirring constantly. Cook 20 minutes in a double boiler, stirring until thickened; add vanilla, pour into moulds which have been dipped into cold water. Chill.
A plain blancmange-style pudding thickened entirely with cornstarch and set in moulds. The method is sound; only the salt quantity and the long cooking time need comment.
- The salt measureThe salt figure has come through as "1-3 teaspoon," which is not a standard kitchen fraction; it is most likely a mangled 1/8 or 1/3. A pinch to 1/4 teaspoon suits two cups of milk, and much more than that will read as salty.
- One square of chocolateA square meant one ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate; modern bars are usually sold in eight-ounce packages, though the scoring varies, so weigh out an ounce. With only 2 tablespoons sugar plus 3 tablespoons corn syrup, the result is a restrained, bitter-leaning pudding; taste before it sets and add sugar if you want it sweeter.
- Corn syrup's jobThe syrup adds sweetness and body; light corn syrup is the safe assumption here, since a dark syrup would fight the chocolate.
- ScaldingScalded milk means heated to about 180F, when it steams and a ring of bubbles forms at the edge. Do not boil it.
- The cooking timeTwenty minutes in a double boiler is not excessive for cornstarch; it cooks out the raw starch taste and fully hydrates the granules. The mixture will thicken well before that, so keep the heat gentle and stir often rather than cutting the time short.
- Vanilla goes in lastThe recipe adds it after the cooking is done, which preserves the aroma; much of it is driven off if it simmers.
- Wetting the mouldsDipping the moulds in cold water rather than greasing them lets the chilled pudding release cleanly without a film of fat. Custard cups, ramekins or small teacups all work; chill at least three hours.
- YieldAbout 2 1/2 cups, which is four small moulded servings.
Cornstarch puddings filled the same place in an American household that a French blancmange did in a grander one: a milk sweet set firm with starch rather than with eggs or isinglass, cheap enough for a weeknight and pretty enough to turn out of a mould. Commercial cornstarch was widely sold from the mid-nineteenth century, which is one reason so many books of this kind carry near-identical versions. The corn syrup suggests a fairly late date, most likely twentieth century, after branded table syrups such as Karo (introduced in the early 1900s) became a pantry staple.