My tiny tree with the too large for it ornaments.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year.  I haven’t had time to go down to Manhattan to do my usual Christmas tour/shopping.  I still refuse to visit any form of mall.  There’s no snow, and with it being on a Tuesday, it just makes the work week awkward.  Plus, its just been so crazy these days, just thinking about the holidays requires brain cells I just cannot spare right now.  In fact, I haven’t even made a decision of what I was going to make this year till Saturday.  So, this year, all of my holiday baking will have to be done in one day.

Since 8am Sunday morning, I’ve been on a mission to get all this holiday baking done in one day.  There was much to do, much to prep, and quite a few new things to be tried.  In the midst of all this my brother presents me with a quart of milk that had to be used by Tuesday.  Neither of us drink milk anymore, and why he had a whole quart, I have no idea.

So, I decided to quickly whip something up that would use as much of that milk as possible.  How about some pudding?

Smitten Kitchen has a good simple recipe for chocolate pudding that had a nice short ingredient list and looked pretty easy.  Just how pudding should be.  Was it?  Easy, yes…quick, no, but nothing good ever is.

Chocolate Pudding Notes:

For my 6 oz of chocolate, I used 2 oz of 100% cocoa and 4 oz of semi sweet chocolate chips.  It comes out nice a chocolate, sweet balance.

I used whole milk.

I really like the double boiler method used here.  For one, I didn’t have to worry about scalding or boiling the milk as it cooked down, which allowed me to walk away to tend to something else in the meantime.  Secondly, I wasn’t going to ruin my nonstick pot surfaces while I whisked out any lumps that would occasionally appear.

This recipe takes time.  Time for the mixture to thicken and time for the pudding to set up in the fridge.  Although once the mixture thickens, it thickens fast.  So, keep an eye on it.

What is pudding skin? I didn’t want to find out, so I applied the clear wrap directly to the surface before letting it chill in the fridge.

Note to self…it really just dawned on me, that maybe a few drops of peppermint extract would have made this pudding more holiday-esq.  Someone give it a try, and let me know how it goes!

All in all, the pudding came out a little thin for me.  It wasn’t soupy, it was just a thinner pudding in terms of consistency.  But for a first time, I’d say, it came out pretty good!  Although I would not recommend eating this for lunch on top of cookie and banana bread sampling.  Real food is needed first, otherwise, too much of a good thing.