Last brief post before Shabbos starts in my house…

I made pareve chocolate pudding for dessert for tonight’s dinner. My sister is coming over. It was a basic vanilla pudding recipe from the back of a box of cornstarch, using soymilk in the place of milk, and with pareve semi-sweet chocolate morsels added at the end.

A couple of things I should have done:

Should have used cocoa powder instead of morsels… but I’ve found it nearly impossible to get cocoa powder in the little groceries in my neighborhood. They don’t even know what I’m talking about when I ask for it and point to the hot chocolate mix in confusion. I’m sure I could find it if I ventured out to Ave. J, but… we’ll see about that another time.

Should have reduced the sugar in the recipe. Between the sweetened vanilla flavored soymilk and the semi-sweetness of the chocolate morsels, the pudding came out a lot sweeter than I usually like it. Had I been smart, I’d have realized this beforehand and halved or quartered the amount of sugar in the recipe. But who ever said I was smart?

Next time I think I’ll try using rice milk instead of soymilk. Or maybe even non-dairy coffee creamer. I don’t dislike the way the pudding came out, but it does taste a bit beany, and my sister really dislikes the beany flavor that soymilk gives pareve desserts. It’s always been a challenge to her pumpkin pie recipe… which is amazing. She uses Coffee Rich in the place of milk.

So there you have it. And with that, merry Christmas to all and to all a gut shabbes.