Way Weird Chocolate Pudding

In the early nineties, S.'s family switched to real Parmesan cheese. The kind that comes in a wedge and requires grating at home. It was a paradigm shift repeated in households across the country, and in many presumably before then, but in our small fishing town on the southern coast of Alaska, I suspect they were among the first. It was quite a sensation. His Mom's homemade fettuccine simply dressed with olive oil and real Parmesan was so good that it gave me the courage to try an even weirder cheese .... feta.

S. was a high school athlete, and in Alaska, this entailed considerable travel. The closest high school with which to compete was an hour and half away by road, and in our seven school "region", the furthest was a 6.5 hour ride. These long trips served to establish a high school bus culture in which completely harmless hijinx were deemed impressively risque by our small-town estimation. It was on one such trip that S. reached into his bus larder to pull from it a container of his mother's homemade pasta garnished impressively with delicate shreds of real Parmesan. This decidedly sophisticated snack worthy of admiration was instead met quizzically and with the final pronunciation that S. ate "way weird Parmesan." Not surprisingly, this became a badge of honor among his family, and to this day, sometimes when it is required, the applicant requests the "way weird Parmesan" to be passed.


Strangely, I'm not here to write about cheese. I did, however, recently have a run in with a completely wacky recipe that shifted my world view of pudding. It reminded me of that story. Now perhaps you (my sole reader. Hi Mom) have a more sophisticated view of pudding, but mine, I've learned, was narrow. Narrow like a green can of dry, cheese-scented sawdust. This new pudding recipe was different. A thick, egg-less brownie batter is topped with a dry sugar mixture, and then, boiling water is poured over the whole thing. Crazy, I know. Somehow during baking, the brownies (on the bottom) rise to the top to blanket the dish with a thin, crackly brownie skin protecting a lake of perfectly melty warm chocolate pudding beneath it. With a flick of the wrist, it can be served with the pudding back on the top lazily running down the brownie to pool at the bottom of the bowl. It is way weird in the very best possible way.


I suppose I could try to fancy this up with a dollop of whipped cream or a little scoop of ice cream, but I'm not really tempted. I like it the way it is - rough and goopy. It's not company food. Rather, I usually throw it together 45 minutes after that healthy dinner I was so proud of proves itself to be unsatisfying. It's ready about halfway through the second episode of my Battlestar Galactia binge, and if I'm lucky, I'll be hungry enough for a second bowl toward the end of the fourth episode. Conveniently, I usually have the ingredients on hand so this rustic treat is always lurking somewhere in my cupboards.



Way Weird Chocolate Pudding
Adapted from Cooking from Quilt Country, Marcia Adams (and common in other sources)

I've reduced the sugar from the published recipe (holy sweet tooth) and also replaced the boiling water with hot coffee. The coffee doesn't add a strong flavor, but the bitterness provides a better balance. Don't hesitate to try the recipe with boiling water instead for a more authentic experience.

1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
7 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups hot coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and THREE tablespoons only of the cocoa powder. Add milk, melted butter, and vanilla to dry ingredients and mix to incorporate. It should form a thick, brownie-like batter. Spread batter evenly over the bottom of a greased 10x6, 9x7 or 8x8 baking dish.

Next, mix remaining 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder with brown sugar to blend and sprinkle dry mixture over batter. Finally, pour hot coffee evenly over sugar mixture. Do not mix! Carefully transfer to the oven and bake 40 minutes. When finished, the top of the dish will appear firm, like a pan of brownies, but it will be hiding a thick layer of gooey pudding beneath it.

Allow to stand at least 10 minutes after removing from oven, but do serve this dish warm. Unlike typical puddings, it dulls a bit at cold temperatures.

SOURCING: King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour; Clabber Girl Baking Powder; Hain Sea Salt; Whole Foods 365 Brand: Organic Cane Sugar, Dark Brown Sugar, and Unsalted Butter; Penzey's Natural Cocoa Powder; Natural-by-Nature Fat Free Milk; Penzey's Vanilla Extract; and Kaladi Brothers coffee (weakly brewed)