Split Level Puddings

Welcome, dear readers, to Tuesdays with Dorie. Today's treat is a split level pudding (recipe here). At first it looks boring, sleepy, and cafeteria-esque. But then you take a bite and there's a surprise underneath. It's a chocolate ganache surprise. Wouldn't it be nice if life always had a little chocolate surprise hiding underneath the mundane? Maybe they should put miniature candy bars in the envelopes with your bills, or pass out M and Ms during traffic jams, or sneak truffles into your gym bag. A little bit of chocolate keeps the doctor away and makes the medicine go down and keeps us together, unless I've somehow mixed up my adages. No matter.

In other news, next week is.... our second annual Cookie Bookie Week here on Prudence Pennywise. Which means that every day next week I'll be recommending a spooky book and delicious cookie for your October enjoyment. Be sure to tune in. Until then...

See you Thursday with yummy chicken satay and red curry peanut sauce.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Butterscotch Pudding

If you think you don't like Buttterscotch Pudding..... you might be dead wrong. At least I was. I was about as excited to make butterscotch pudding this week as I am for my monthly credit card bill. But I was dead wrong. (Not about the bill; oh, mama.) Leave it to Dorie Greenspan to make a butterscotchy believer out of me. This decadent pudding is warm and buttery, with brown sugar and caramel undertones and a luscious creamy texture. Take it from me and plan to serve this one in front of the fire place-warm, with a dollop of whipped cream and sugared pecans. Here's your link to silky-warm-you -to-your-toes goodness. It's so yummy it'll make you forget all about that credit card bill that I mentioned earlier. Forget I mentioned it. For my fellow penny-pinchers, the estimated cost is $2.00 for a half batch, if you make it my way, which is scotch-less. I also didn't use a food processor, like Dorie recommends. Lazy dishwasher me. The wire whisk works wonders. How's that alliteration for you?

And in the meantime, I've been baking loads of chocolate chip cookies and then popping those Nestle swirly chips on the top when they just come out of the oven. Colored M and Ms work well, too.They're the best for parties that include kids of all ages, from one to ninety-two. Speaking of ninety-two, that's about how many I almost ate. And I betcha Santa Claus might like his own little set of ninety-two tomorrow night.

This just in: Hey! Head over to Fine Blogs to see my guest post about a super easy (and cheap and yummy) Christmas Breakfast.

Up Next:

Best Case Scenario: Overnight Breakfast Strata (see above link!), Christmas Cupcakes, Christmas in Italy....in no particular order.

Catching Up with Tuesdays with Dorie

You know, every Tuesday that I was away in Europe, I felt a small twinge of longing. Before I left on my trip, I faithfully made all of the Tuesdays with Dorie assignments, and fully planned to post them as I traveled along. After a frustrating night of spotty Internet in Rome with an Italian keyboard, I realized that my time would be much better spent in enjoying the moment. And still, on Tuesdays I wished I could participate with my posts but even more so, I longed to peek at all the other TWD posts. So here's what I missed while I was away. Rice pudding. It's quite pretty, true. It doesn't make me do a back flip or shout Hallelujah, but it's better than I remember. When I lived in South America, I had cinnamon rice pudding at least twice weekly, and I learned to tolerate it. Dark chocolate rice pudding and white chocolate raspberry rice pudding are more palatable, sure, but my picky mouth still wonders why there are roly-poly bits of rice in my beautiful chocolate. It's like orange juice with pulp; I wanted to strain it with my teeth.
Next up was the Kugelhopf, a pleasant mix of yeast risen bread and cake. I made mine with shredded apples and a buttery cinnamon sugar coating. And while it was pleasing to the palate, I bemoaned the fact that it wasn't a bit sweeter. Honestly, I put more sugar in my dinner rolls than the bitty 3 tablespoons used in the dough. The outside of the cake is brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with sugar, which is delicious, but only made me want to skin the cake and skip the middle. Which is what I did. It saves calories to eat only the yummiest part. Then with your saved calories, you can eat even more of the yummiest part.

My favorite, by far, of this month's assignments was today's Twofer pie, a happy marriage of two Thanksgiving favorites-pecan and pumpkin. Baking pie on the Monday night before the holiday seemed like an excessively premature thing to do, so I skipped the crust, halved the recipe , and baked the filling in three little custard cups. IT'S GOOD! Really and truly good. So good that now in addition to the apple ginger, mixed berry, pecan chocolate, pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin streusel pies that I'll be making tomorrow, now I'll be making a big TWOFER pie too. You can get the recipe here at Vibi's gorgeous French blog. Scroll down and you'll find the recipe in English, never fear. Ay mamacita! Thank goodness there will be nearly 30 of us to devour them.

And here's a naughty little secret: we always devour at least one pie on Wednesday night. Tomorrow night's going to be wild at our house. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to two of my little sisters today. Heidi and Catherine, born three years apart but on the same day.

Come Back Tomorrow:

Our Fun Night Before Thanksgiving Dinner Tradition

Tuesdays with Dorie: Velvety Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream

It's time for Tuesdays with Dorie, so tie up your apron and bake along. Forget the bakery! Make your own treats at home on the cheap and wow your family, friends and neighbors.
This week I made a chilling discovery.....
After having such success eschewing cooked custard recipes for homemade ice cream last week, I wondered if my Tuesdays with Dorie chocolate pudding assignment could morph into a frozen confection. Why not, I asked myself? Pudding is a cooked custard, after all, albeit thickened with cornstarch. I checked in with baking goddess Dorie herself (via email) to see if pudding could possibly churn itself into ice cream. Her response: "I don’t have a clue whether or not you can churn the chocolate pudding in an ice cream maker, but boy does it sound like it could be great if it worked! "
Hmm....it could be great if it worked was all the encouragement that I needed. Still, I started off cautious, careful, practical, and oh yes, frugal. I made a half batch, and I used chocolate chips instead of the good chocolate, just in case it turned out to have the consistency of an icy jello pudding pop that Bill Cosby used to advertise on TV. (I actually did like them-iciness and all.) But it wasn't icy at all! It was luscious, creamy and smooth-"frozen chocolate butter" as Quiet Man described it. "Ooh-is this chocolate gelato?" enquired my unsuspecting sister. Suddenly, I had visions of opening a summer-only ice cream shop on Nantucket, highlighting this sensuous chocolate pudding recipe, and making myself millions of dollars and turning into Prudence Pound Foolish. But then...I'd miss all of you, dear readers, and what would I do with my stock of clipped coupons? So, alas, I deferred another dream and instead share my "chilling" discovery with you. And if any of you open a summer ice cream shop on Nantucket, can I have a free cone? If it's chocolate pudding ice cream, make it a double scoop.
And one last thing-since this ice cream simply "melts" into pudding, it makes a perfect drip-free cone for your little charges.
Velvety Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream-only slightly adapted from Dorie Greenspan
Estimated Cost: $4.00
Notes: I made only a half batch, unsure if it would really work. Next time I'm going to double-no triple-the recipe. I also used a blender, since I don't own a food processor.
2 and 1/4 cup milk (I used 2 percent)
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs (Dorie actually calls for 1 egg and 2 egg yolks)
1 scant cup semi sweet chocolate chips (Dorie calls for chopped bittersweet chocolate)
2 tablespoons room temperature butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Bring 2 cups milk and 3 tablespoons sugar to boil in a medium saucepan. While the milk is heating, process cocoa, cornstarch and salt in food processor. Place cocoa mixture on a sheet of waxed paper. Process remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and eggs for one minute. Scrape down the sides and add remaining cool 1/4 cup milk. Add the dry ingredients and blend. Slowly with the machine running, add the hot milk mixture. Transfer back to saucepan, add chocolate chips and butter and whisk until smooth and thickened over medium heat, about two minutes. Whisk in vanilla off the heat. (Dorie puts the mixture back into the processor, but I skipped this step since it would churn smoother in the ice cream maker.)
Cool pudding in refrigerator. Transfer to ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions.
Coming Tomorrow:
Roasted "Calabacitas" and Tomatillo Pasta