mix, mix… stir, stir

Chocolate pudding is the happiest dessert there is. With the first spoonful conversation inevitably ceases as my full attention is drawn to concentrating on every rich creamy bite. I blissfully drift off to a happy place thoroughly savoring the smooth luxuriousness until the clinking of the spoon on the dish fores me to accept the fact that nothing more can be scraped from the bowl.

The happiness being whipped up in the kitchens of the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers this week is thanks to the excellent selection from Melissa of It’s Melissa’s Kitchen. You can find Dorie’s delicious Chocolate Pudding recipe in her wonderful book Baking: From My Home to Yours.

What is unique about this chocolate pudding is the process rather than the ingredients. Milk, cocoa powder, sugar, cornstarch, eggs, chocolate, butter and vanilla; no surprises here. The method of mixing with a food processor both before and after the thickening process is what is interesting. Dorie’s rational is that working in some air during the processing phase creates a lighter and highly velvety texture. I concur. This is a luxurious pudding. It has good chocolate flavor and an outstanding texture. It will make you happy on the inside!

Before diving into making this recipe I was thinking about how to serve it up and I really wanted some whipped cream as a garnish, but had none. Not wanting to make a special trip to the store I spotted some sour cream in the back of the fridge and I had an instant flashback to the Strawberries Romanoff dessert that was served in a restaurant I worked in as a teenager. I recall the Romanoff sauce was just sour cream blended with some brown sugar and it was stunningly delicious.

I figured brown sugar sweetened sour cream and chocolate pudding would get along just fine together. Add a touch of cinnamon and it would be a sure thing. A quick glance at the sour cream, whew, it’s not expired. On with the sauce-de-improvisation.

Many versions of Romanoff sauce are a combination of sour cream and whipping cream, but if you have been paying attention you know that I don’t have any whipping cream. I have seen versions that add a splash of booze, orange flavoring, and different spices. Here is my version that is deliciously successful on chocolate pudding and summer-fresh strawberries.

Romanoff Sauce
1/2 cup sour cream
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Vigorously whisk the ingredients together until the brown sugar dissolves. Add additional cinnamon to suit your taste. Chill to set, then serve a generous dollop on chocolate pudding or fresh strawberries.

Ten minutes of summer on a plate, well more like four minutes. So far this Strawberry Tart is the first sign of summer I have seen in the Northwest. It has been day after day of cool, gray, and rainy in these parts. Thankfully California is growing strawberries and shipping them North so we can have a little taste of what will hopefully be here at some point.

The delicious result of this week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie selection by Marie of A Year in Oak Cottage!  You can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspans Baking: From My Home to Yours I did play a bit with this assignment, beginning by making small tarts for individual servings. To better accomodate the small tart shell, I decided to slice and layer the berries. The it’s-what-I-have-on-hand syndrome was employed a few times as well, starting with using Rosemary Rhubarb Jelly rather than the suggested strawberry jam, which would have required a trip to the store. Of course strawberry and rhubarb are happy old friends so the flavors worked wonderfully and I was pleased to utilize a bit of my last jar of this precious jelly for such a fancy application. Thankfully it is rhubarb season so I can do some canning soon and re-stock my pantry to hold me for another year.

The next thing I know I am rooting around in my spice drawer and come up with a container of Grains of Paradise. Perfect! A little more floral and complex in flavor with less heat than black pepper. It fits into just about any application calling for black pepper, but I especially like to use it in dishes that have delicate flavors and in garnishing. When crushed, the seeds are creamy white on the inside making a beautifully speckled garnish. 

I played a bit in the spice drawer while making the crust as well. I added 1/2 teaspoon of Mahleb (see previous post) which added a warm nutty flavor that is not exactly identifiable, but just that little flavor of something in the background. Having read other baker’s posts about the crust being a bit hard and cookie-like I thought that could be troublesome with the smaller sized tarts making them rather difficult to eat. I didn’t want my tart shooting across the room when I try to dig my fork in for my first bite of summer. I replaced 2 tablespoons of flour with cornstarch and the crust was delightfully delicate and crumbly.

I was not lucky enough to be able to use brilliantly fresh local berries, so I employed a little trick I learned from Teller, yes, of Penn and Teller. Last year I had the good fortune to win a fundraising auction for brunch at his home. He made a wonderful brunch and shared the great tip of adding a splash of rose water to strawberries if they aren’t quite as ripe as you would like them to be. The rose water brought the most beautiful aroma to my berries which further fueled my delusions of summer for a brief, but delicious moment.

And for my husband, who does not share a love for strawberries, these tarts held rich chocolate pudding just fine!