CEiMB: Double Chocolate Pudding

I have joined a new group of talented bloggers! Much like Tuesdays with Dorie, each week, a member of the group picks one recipe from the cookbook, and everyone in the group makes and blogs about that recipe. This group is called Craving Ellie in My Belly, the cookbook from which we are cooking is called The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger.

Ellie is a Food Network chef and a dietitian. I have often watched her show, Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger, and I am excited about trying a lot of the recipes in her cookbook.

This week's recipe pick is from Tessa of Handle the Heat. She chose for us to bake the Double Chocolate Pudding Pie from The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger. Since it was just me who would be enjoying this dessert I took a suggestion from the Craving Ellie in My Belly website and decided to just make the pudding and not the whole pie. I halved the recipe and the pudding fit perfectly in two small bowls. Other than that, I stuck to the recipe exactly. After the pudding had cooled in the refrigerator, I topped it with whipped cream and crushed graham crackers. You can find the recipe here.

It is called Double Chocolate Pudding because it contains both cocoa powder and bittersweet chocolate, and I think that it really adds to the deep flavor of the pudding. Instead of relying on heavy cream to thicken the pudding, Ellie's recipe uses two thickeners, cornstarch and gelatin, which makes the pudding thick enough for a pie, but perhaps a bit too thick for pudding alone. This is a really rich pudding, it is hard to believe that it is made with skim milk. I really liked this recipe, next time, I might add some instant coffee to the pudding to make it have a mocha flavor. I look forward to upcoming recipes!!