Homemade Chocolate Pudding

I had mentioned something about photos of the next batch of chocolate pudding. I made some for Game Day on Sunday. Didn't get the photos done while making the pudding. But really Smitten Kitchen's are great, so imagine I followed the same process. ;-)

Jenna likes milk chocolate, but I needed to use up some of this chocolate that mom had sent me for Christmas. She's asked if I tried it a couple of times. She does it as a hot chocolate, I thought I'd use it in here. I chopped up one of the two blocks in the box and still needed to fill in for that 1 cup needed for the recipe. So I grabbed down the box of milk chocolates that I have slowly been nibbling on over the last two years that she brought back from Germany. Don't be shocked but they sat uneaten for a couple of months. Straight chocolate I don't eat a lot, I much prefer it as a cake or brownie.

This is the Christmas chocolate box and the finished pudding. I got seven custard cups full of pudding:

American Heritage Chocolate Block it lists 'spices' and you can taste them and I liked it. William liked the previous batch better.

Side view to show that it does look like a milk chocolate rather than a dark. 

She also gave me a bag of the bites. I tried one after eating the pudding and you can taste the 'spices' in it also. It's a little dark at 63% cacao. I think I'll use them for baking. Maybe some homemade brownies? ;-)

With seven cups we all had some on Sunday night and the three of us will have the remainder after dinner Monday night.

My chocolate stash currently has some Ghirardelli Pumpkin Spice Squares that Danna brought back for me from her trip to San Francisco a year ago. They aren't offered all year round, so can't even find them on their web site. Yummy Caramel with the pumpkin spice flavor. (Hmmm seems like someone got in and ate all my pumpkin spice squares!) Erik was going to Switerland and I asked him to bring me back some chocolate. (I paid him for the bars against his wishes.) He brought back a brand I hadn't seen before - Frey. A bar of Truffes au Lait. If I'm reading the ingredients correctly they have a cherry filling - kirsch and a bar of Caramel, with the obvious caramel filling. Both are milk chocolate (I'm driving Brandon crazy by not opening them and sharing.) There's also a bar of Nutcracker Brittle from Theo that is also some Christmas Chocolate. Brandon had gotten this one and I'd gotten one with hot chili peppers in it. We traded because he doesn't like nuts.

These found a new place to live until I decide to share. ;-)

Oh, had thought about trying Smitten Kitchen's Dulce de Leche recipe, but that required the whole quart of whole milk and I didn't want to do a half recipe since then I'd only get half a cup. That just didn't make sense with the time commitment. Hence the repeat of the chocolate pudding. Still have a bit left, so I'll try the hot chocolate with the second bar of American Heritage.