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Chocolate Pudding

Homemade chocolate pudding! Enjoy chocolate pudding the way it is supposed to be made, from scratch, with basic pudding ingredients of cocoa powder, sugar, milk, egg, and chocolate chips.

Elise Bauer

Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

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Elise Bauer
Updated February 16, 2021
Elise Bauer
Chocolate Pudding
Elise Bauer

What to do on the last day of vacation with a kid who loves to help cook, a fridge stocked with whole milk and eggs, and a pantry with cocoa, chocolate chips and sugar?

Make chocolate pudding, of course!

Pudding ingredients are basic and usually on-hand, and Aldie and I shared a wickedly good afternoon making this batch, based on a recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook.

Alden loves to help in the kitchen, not only with the cooking but with the cleaning up of the pots and pans as well.

Making Homemade Chocolate Pudding with basic pudding ingredients
Elise Bauer

Homemade Chocolate Pudding

This homemade chocolate pudding is easy to quickly put together, the only tricky part is slowly tempering a beaten egg with a hot cocoa mixture. By tempering the beaten egg, we slowly heat it up by adding a small amount of hot cocoa mixture to it at a time. This way it the egg doesn't cook and curdle in the chocolate pudding.

Then, you need to pour the chocolate pudding into individual ramekins and chill it for a few hours before it's officially ready to eat.

More Chocolate Pudding Recipes

Chocolate Pudding

Prep Time 5 mins
Cook Time 25 mins
Chilling 2 hrs
Total Time 2 hrs 30 mins
Servings 4 servings
Recipe adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook.

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 Tbsp cornstarch
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1 large egg
  • 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • Four 6-ounce ramekins or custard cups

Method

  1. Heat cocoa milk base:

    Whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, and salt in a heavy 2-quart saucepan.

    Gradually whisk in the milk.

    Making chocolate pudding from scratch
    Elise Bauer
    pudding ingredients added to bowl
    Elise Bauer

    Bring to a boil, and whisk until the ingredients are well mixed and smooth. Stir until pudding is thick, about 3 to 5 minutes. Once the pudding starts to thicken, remove from heat.

    whisking chocolate pudding
    Elise Bauer
  2. Temper the egg:

    Immediately beat the egg lightly in a medium, heat-proof bowl, such as a hard plastic or ceramic mixing bowl.

    Very gradually stir the hot chocolate mixture into the egg.

    how to make homemade chocolate pudding
    Elise Bauer
  3. Add the chocolate chips:

    Whisk in the chocolate chips until they are melted and the mixture is smooth.

    homemade chocolate pudding whisked in bowl
    Elise Bauer
  4. Pour into ramekins and chill:

    Pour the pudding into the ramekins or cups. If you want, cover the surface of each of the pudding cups with some cut out wax paper to prevent a skin from forming on the top of the pudding.

    Refrigerate, covered, until cold, at least 2 hours.

    chocolate pudding poured into ramekins to chill
    Elise Bauer

    Optional: Serve with whipped cream.

Licking Chocolate Pudding Bowl
One benefit of being the cook - licking the bowl. Elise Bauer
Alden and Piper Enjoying Chocolate Pudding
Bon Apetit!. Elise Bauer