Baked Chocolate Pudding

{Ina Garten's baked chocolate pudding}

Before I begin it is only right that I should state my bias. When it comes to custard-like desserts I have never met one I didn't love. My love for creamy, “eggy” desserts began when I was a little girl and my Grammy Hope served me a small bowl of warm tapioca pudding with half a maraschino cherry on top. Grammy Hope must have loved creamy, eggy desserts too because in addition to tapioca she also made me rice pudding with piping hot raisins and a simple custard dessert with a delicious layer of cinnamon on top. Each of these desserts was served in a tiny bowl. I have a soft spot for desserts served in individual vessels. It definitely ups the cute quotient.

My Grammy Hope would have been proud of the baked chocolate pudding I made on Sunday night, although I’m not even sure if she liked chocolate. I am confident that the texture of the dessert alone would have won her over.

We were invited over to our friends’ house for dinner and I had volunteered to make dessert. I had never made Baked Chocolate Pudding before but I trust Ina Garten when it comes to dessert. She is a woman who is not afraid to use a little butter and trust me, you can tell when you take a bite of any of her creations - heavenly.

It is always a bit of a gamble making something for the first time when you plan on serving it to friends, but I knew our hosts would be game to try anything and worst case scenario I could have always picked something up on the way. (They live dangerously close to Dee Dee’s!)

Once baked the dish looked quite plain – I was going to use the word rustic but that would be romanticizing a rather ordinary looking dish. So it’s not the most beautiful dessert to look at, but none of my creamy, eggy favorites are – just think of tapioca, rice pudding and custard.  

I stuck a knife in the pudding to see if it was done and the pressure sent a crack flying across the meringue like surface of the dish. Picture putting a knife in a pavlova or better yet picture the bottom of a river that has dried up. Opps. The knife came out gooey, but I went with it, it was after all a pudding of sorts.

We packed up the jeep, Violet and the dessert of unknown quality in tow, ready for a night of relaxation (with two wee ones yeah right) and good conversation (definitely).

We dined on delicious homemade pizza/ calzone. (It was definitely more like pizza Rachel). Then we all tried the pudding – a keeper of a recipe, that is for sure.

Served with vanilla ice cream this dessert would be hard to beat in terms of comfort food. The soft but crunchy meringue gets coated in the gooey innards of the cake. I tried to get a small bite of ice cream with every mouthful of pudding, the cool smooth ice cream melted alongside the warm chocolate.

On a cold Sunday night in February, with my Grammy Hope in mind, the pudding was exactly that the doctor ordered.

{yum yum}

check out the recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/brownie-pudding-recipe/index.html

xo  Em