Chocolate Pudding Pots

Chocolate Pudding Pots – for all your (effortless!) dinner party dessert needs. Think – a richer, more luxurious Chocolate Mousse, with a fraction of the work. Tastes sophisticated. Easy to pretty up. Make ahead 5 days!

These little Chocolate Pudding Pots are everything I love in a dessert – luxurious yet not overly rich, not too sweet, and elegant enough for a fancy dinner, yet dead easy to make. It’s the sort of dessert that makes people think you’ve done something clever, when really it’s just a matter of whisking a few things together then chilling.

It’s essentially a no-bake version of Pots de Crèmes, the French chocolate custards. The texture and flavour is the same – softly creamy, melting into a river of chocolate in your mouth. But best of all, these keep beautifully for days. I stash them in the fridge and sneak spoonfuls whenever I pass by …… until I find my pot mysteriously empty. Who ate my pudding pot?!!

And yes, the “keeps for 5 days” part also makes it an excellent ready-to-go dessert, not just standby snacking food. 😀

Ingredients

While nostalgic chocolate puddings of years gone by were set just using cornflour / cornstarch, I like to use egg yolks as well which also makes it a little more luxurious without leaving a greasy mouthfeel. Plus – real chocolate, not just cocoa powder, for rich chocolate flavour. Essentially, this chocolate pudding is a variation of chocolate French pastry cream (Crème Pâtissière). 🙂

70% cocoa chocolate will give this a rich chocolate flavour that’s not too sweet, as well as the dark brown chocolate that makes this look quite sophisticated, I think! I like to use the block form and chop it up so it melts effortlessly. The chocolate also does the bulk of the heavy lifting to set the pudding, so don’t cut down on the chocolate (or if you do, you need to dial up the cornflour – see FAQ).

Chocolate options and notes:
– Regular dark chocolate is ~45% cocoa so the chocolate flavour is less intense plus it’s a little sweeter so consider reducing the sugar by 1 tablespoon (the approximate amount of extra sugar in dark chocolate v 70% cocoa), plus also the colour is not quite as dark brown.
– Melts (buttons/discs) or chips – no need to chop the chocolate. Buttons/discs are designed to melt easily, whereas chips are designed to hold their form when baked (like in Chocolate Chip Cookies) but actually, they melt fine too!
– Milk chocolate or white chocolate – This recipe isn’t designed for these as they are softer and sweeter. I’d need to tweak cornflour and sugar amounts so the pudding sets properly and isn’t overly sweet.

Cocoa powder – Regular unsweetened cocoa powder, though dutch processed will work fine here too (I’d probably reduce to 1 1/2 tablespoons). Make sure you sift it, cocoa powder is notoriously lumpy!
2 large egg yolks – Use the yolks of large eggs, which are eggs ~50-55g/2oz each from cartons labelled “large eggs” (it’s a standardised industry term). Separate the yolk while fridge cold, it’s easier.
Milk and cream – The liquids for the pudding. I like using more cream than milk (1 1/2 cups cream and 1 cup milk) for a slightly richer finish. If you wanted to cut down on calories, you could absolutely make this with just low fat milk (but increase the cornflour slightly to help it set better, see recipe notes).
Cornflour / cornstarch – This helps the pudding set a bit.
Caster sugar / superfine sugar – Regular white sugar is fine too, caster sugar is just my default because the grains are finer so they dissolve more easily.
Vanilla extract – Better than imitation vanilla essence!
Pinch of salt – Brings out the chocolate flavour, standard practice in baking these days to include a bit of salt!

How to make Chocolate Pudding Pots

In summary – whisk everything except the chocolate in a saucepan, heat to thicken, melt chocolate through, pour into pots and chill. In case you missed it above – keeps for 5 days!

Whisk everything – Put the yolks and sugar in a medium saucepan (about 20cm / 8″ wide). Whisk to combine (it will seem thick at first but then the sugar liquifies). Add the cornflour, vanilla, cocoa powder (I sift it straight in) and salt with a small splash of milk (~2 tablespoons). We need a bit of milk else the mixture is dry and clumpy. Then mix the milk and cream in – it should be a pale brown watery mixture.
Warm to thicken – Put it on a medium stove. As the mixture warms up, it will thicken slightly – not much, because the pudding is mostly set from the chocolate which we add later. Whisk every now and then at first, then more regularly as it gets warmer as it will thicken on the base. Take it off the stove as soon as you see bubbles – it will take about 5 minutes.

⚠️ Don’t be impatient like me and make the heat too stronger to speed things up, or even think you can start high then go low. You will pay the price when you’re eating scrambled egg lumps. 😭

Melt chocolate – Add the chopped chocolate and stir until fully melted. If it’s not melting fully (which could happen if some chunks were a little big!), put it back on a low stove to give it a helping hand.
Pour – Working quickly, pour the mixture into 5 glasses or other serving vessel. For 5 servings there is just shy of 1/2 cup per person, so uses glasses a little larger than this (my cocktail glasses are 3/4 cup (180 ml). You could also use one large dish – there’s 1.25 litres (5 cups) of custard so use a dish a little larger.

TIP: The faster you pour, the smoother the surface of your puddings as the mixture thickens quickly in the saucepan which will leave “ripples” on the surface of your pudding. Not a big deal, it will be hidden by cream anyway, and actually I think it looks quite nice. 🙂

Chill to set – Let the puddings cool for around 15 minutes on the counter then in chill in the fridge for 3 hours to fully set. Don’t cover as it will cause condensation which will drip onto the surface of the pudding. The pudding will set to a texture that is soft enough so it melts effortlessly into a river of chocolate in your mouth, but holds its form when you take a scoop out. As in – pudding perfection! 🙂
Decorate with a little (or a lot!) of whipped cream and a sprinkle of chopped chocolate.

I kept the garnish for this simple with just cream and a little chopped chocolate (which was originally grated chocolate but I really like the texture of chopped instead). But there’s so many more options! Here are some ideas:

A raspberry or halved strawberry and a small spring of mint;
Sprinkle of crushed nuts, pralines, leftover toffee pecans from last weeks’ layered pumpkin cake, peanut brittle or similar;
Spritz with gold dust or a little piece of edible gold foil;
Sprinkle with freeze dried strawberries or raspberries; or
Add something crunchy like a biscotti, shortbread, tuille or wafer balanced on the glass or served on the side.

What do you think? Love to know what other ideas you have for toppings! – Nagi x