Adventures in cooking

The task: pudding shots. At the last party we had for Tim's classmates, someone brought jello shots, and we riffed on the idea of pudding shots. As there is another party tonight, I feel compelled to experiment.

The puddings: Devil's food chocolate, and sugar-free (gross) banana.

The liquors: homemade kahlua, and spiced rum

The directions: Mix powder with 2 cups cold milk. Stir vigorously for two minutes; place in fridge for five as the pudding sets.

The first attempt: I used one cup of cold milk, and one cup kahlua with the chocolate powder. I didn't think about chilling the liquor. I might should have. The mixture got syrupy, but never gelled into pudding consistency. Tim and I brainstormed ways to thicken it, which ran the gamut from introducing a lot of corn starch (that didn't work) to making custard to combine with the pudding to adding whipping cream . We ran to the grocery store for some heavy cream. I whipped it to stiff peaks, then folded it into the chocolate. It immediately melted and retained no semblance to whipped cream. The pudding still wasn't thicker, but it sure tasted more decadent! In the end, I half filled Dixie cups and put them in the freezer.

The second attempt: Banana. Less than one cup spiced rum this time--more like 3/4 c. After leaving it in the fridge for a little while, it seemed to set up nicely, and puddingly, but when I poked it, the mixture sloshed around like a melted malted. This time I poured the cream into the bananas, and blended it for a while. After about ten minutes, my arm got tired of holding the mixer, and it wasn't much thicker. The taste was vastly improved by the addition of the cream. I started pouring it into Dixie cups, and by the time I was halfway through, the consistency was a lot closer to pudding than the chocolate had become. Because I kind of really hate fake banana flavor (not to mention aspartame), but had twice as many banana cups as chocolate cups (due to some experimentation with the chocolate), I tried to sweeten the deal by chopping real bananas into tiny pieces and sprinkling them on top. I even wanted to finely chop some walnuts to dust the tops (I love love love bananas and walnuts together), but the taste testers said that might be going overboard for "shots."

The final taste test: Meghan and Lauren, Tim's friends from his program. Had to grab a chair for support after tasting the chocolate kahlua, they became so weak in the knees. Dear god, these pudding shots are amazing!