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I make! Individual Kahlua chocolate pudding pies edition

A-pusher donated a bottle of Kahlúa to me recently because I wanted to make Kahlúa mocha milkshakes.  Which I have and will be a later post.  But you only need so much Kahlua in a milkshake and I still had a goodly amount of Kahlúa left.  What do?  Make Kahlúa chocolate pudding pies.

My first exposure to a Kahlúa infused pie was with Marie Callender’s Kahlúa cream cheese pie.  But I’ve always thought that it would be better if there was less cream cheese and more chocolate (and possibly Kahlúa, but definitely more chocolate).  I also really like Marie Callender’s chocolate satin pie and always thought that Kahlúa would be really good with that.  So, I combined them.

I wanted a pie with the texture of a French silk pie where it’s kind of dense but airy at the same time.  But…I didn’t really want to deal with a sabayon (with Kahlúa instead of Moscato), which I think it needs to create that particular texture (if you don’t want to use raw egg).  Soooo…I didn’t bother and made pudding pies instead.  Still lots of chocolate, just with a pudding texture instead of a French silk pie texture.

The crust was a sleeve and a half of Oreos (probably 20ish cookies?), crushed, and processed with about 4-5oz butter, melted.  I divided the cookie mixture up evenly among eight 4oz wide mouth mason jars and baked them at 350degF until fragrant, probably about 15min.

The pudding part was mostly following this recipe from Foodie with Family.  I have to say that the procedure is…interesting.  I mean, it definitely works.  But I don’t think I’ve ever tried making a custard with the egg already added at the beginning.  I’ve always added it afterward and after tempering the eggs.  I feel like it’s too easy to get cooked egg pieces following the given procedure.  I dunno.  It’s kind of weird because you’re making a custard but with cornstarch.  Cornstarch doesn’t thicken until boiling.  But then you get cooked egg at boiling.  Then again, you’re straining the end mixture, so you won’t have weird egg pieces in your pudding.  That’s something.

Anyway, I subbed the 3 cups of whole milk with 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 cups of 1%.  It’s what I had on hand.  I also subbed the bittersweet chocolate out for dark chocolate, as because that’s what I had on hand.  If you think about it, this pudding procedure is a mash of stuff.  You’re making an egg based custard but also with cornstarch and then with that mixture, you’re basically making a ganache.  So many techniques!

I made these in the small mason jars because I didn’t want to store a whole pie.  The idea was originally to make a bunch and stick them in the freezer so that I could have readily available dessert for when I needed it.  But…that didn’t happen.  I had a mild complainy fest with a friend over some pie and I gave her two, one for her and one for her mom; then I slated another one to A-pusher (but she might not receive it), since it was originally her bottle of Kahlua; I was feeling sorry for myself one day and ate another pie, my brother wanted a pie…yeah, none of the pies made it into the freezer.  Oh well.

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I make! Random fruit cobbler edition

I just realized that I’ve never posted about fruit cobbler before.  This is weird because I do make a lot of cobbler because I often am trying to get rid of fruit.  Or I’ll find that my mother has stashed fruit into the freezer.  Or I’ll find that my mother was trying to corner the market on canned, sliced peaches.  There are other things you can do with random fruit, but I like cobblers because they’re quick and easy to throw together and there’s just something welcoming about a warm dessert (with ice cream).

So, recently I needed a dessert and the original intention was to make a lemon cake or lemon bars (stupid lemon tree).  Unfortunately, I didn’t manage my time well enough to make anything with all the lemons.  It wasn’t so much the bake time that was getting me as it was the prep and assemble time.  What do?  Look in the freezer and see what random fruit you have and throw a cobbler together.  Turns out, I had a pack of sweet cherries (pitted) and I used those to make a 9×9 cobbler.

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Since a cobbler is something I normally just throw together, I’m not always very precise with measurements.  But typically, my batter is 2-4 tbsp of butter that I melt in the baking dish in the oven while preheating (325degF).  I mix a cup of flour, 2 tsp of baking powder, 0.25 tsp salt, and 0.25-0.5 cup of granulated sugar together in a separate bowl.  To that, I add about 0.75 cup of milk (or if I’m feeling fancy, buttermilk) and 1 tsp of vanilla extract and mix into a smooth batter.

When the oven is preheated, I take the baking dish out and pour in the batter and whisk it around a little to incorporate the butter a little (small pools of butter are fine) and then dump the fruit right on top.  It’s probably around 2 cups worth of fruit normally.  If you’re using frozen, go directly from frozen.  If you’re using fresh, you’ll probably want to cut the fruit into bite size pieces.  Then you just throw everything in the oven for about an hour.  I don’t think I’ve ever had poor results with this method.

I’ve made cobblers with blueberries (fresh, frozen), random mixed berries (frozen), peaches (fresh, frozen, canned), mango (frozen), apples (fresh, frozen, although I typically prefer to make apple crisp or pie with fresh apples), and cherries (frozen, canned).  I may have tried it with other fruit too…but I don’t remember right now.

Sometimes I will double the batter because I have a lot of people say that the cake portion of the cobbler is their favorite part.  I actually like the fruit part, and I’ve been known to jam waaaay too much fruit into a cobbler.  You generally need to bake it longer if you stick in a lot of fruit as it would otherwise be too soggy.

Did I mention that cobbler is pretty good for breakfast?  Maybe with some plain or vanilla yogurt in place of the ice cream?