How to Make Homemade Chocolate Pudding Snack Packs
It's actually even tastier than it looks. [Photographs: Liz Gutman]
I was a deprived child. My parents were always putting weird stuff in our lunch boxes: cheese sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, plastic Ziploc bags full of pretzel twists. Store-brand cookies, for God's sake! Where were our Lunchables? Or individual cartons of chocolate milk? And the crinkly foil bags of neon-orange cheese puffs? I spent a lot of time in elementary school trying to cajole friends into swapping with me. Unfortunately few nine-year-olds actually like Vegemite sandwiches, go figure.
In hindsight, of course, I'm grateful to my parents for packing healthy, less processed foods. But, to this day, I have a sick fascination with junk food—convenience desserts in particular. Enter the Snack Pack.
There are few things in this world more comforting to me than squishy, sweet, creamy desserts, especially when they come in a ready-to-eat cup. But pudding is really easy to make at home, too.
So when I got hit with a serious pudding jones recently, I spent a few days vacillating over which recipe to use. Did I want a non-egg recipe? Chocolate or vanilla? Or maybe butterscotch?
Eventually I decided to hybridize a Martha Stewart recipe using both dark and milk chocolate puddings—which then, of course, gets layered into cute little containers. The container cuteness is optional; and of course you can gussy this up with any kind of extract, liqueur, or spice. But I highly recommend trying it straight-up at least once.
I call it Le Snaque-Paque. If you bring a little glass jar of this magical stuff into work, everyone will be begging you to trade. Promise.
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8 Comments:
YUM. Pudding is so under-rated.
hmgreen616 at 7:04PM on 04/06/11
I think those containers are so cute, they should not be optional!
Teachertalk at 7:07PM on 04/06/11
I love pudding and these look good, but...
You said "Snack Packs", as in school-lunch-worthy.
What kind of disposable container would be appropriate?
What kind of unrefrigerated shelf life does this have?
Is this recipe actually any different or more "snack packish" than any other pudding recipe would be? Consistency, temperature stability, kid-appeal, lack of "skin", ingredients?
Would you change much in doing this dairy-free?
I guess I'm just not clear how the recipe meets the "hook" it promised. Unless I'm missing something, it's just "make pudding, put in jars"?
seriousb at 7:16PM on 04/06/11
@seriousb - it's the flavor, the consistency, and the two-kinds-in-one-recipe-that-you-can-layer component that I consider to be the most snack-pack-ish. The containers I put it in are little glass jars I had left over from yogurt and jam; I suppose those are as portable as any (and reusable is better than disposable in my opinion).
As for dairy-free - I imagine the recipe would be completely different, thought I've never made dairy free pudding. would certainly be worth a shot with nut or rice milk, though the cornstarch amount might need to be adjusted; let me know if you try it!
Liz Gutman at 7:26PM on 04/06/11
@hmgreen - I TOTALLY agree. can't believe this is the first time I've made pudding at home. definitely won't be the last.
@Teachertalk - thanks! I'm kind of a pack-rat with reusable containers; guess it comes in handy once in a while...
Liz Gutman at 7:27PM on 04/06/11
Okay, thanks, Liz. I guess for shelf life one would be hoping for the best until lunch time.
As a point of reference, I made some standard boxed pudding mix with soy milk, using 1.5 cups instead of 2 cups of regular milk, and it came out great (even better and creamier than regular milk in my opinion). So I imagine it wouldn't take too much tweaking.
Thanks for the recipe.
seriousb at 7:43PM on 04/06/11
I've done the same thing but used the Ziplock, Glad, etc. 1/2 cup plastic containers. They're a good size for a small pudding and they're cheap enough I don't care if one gets lost/broken/accidentally thrown away.
rheogs at 7:53PM on 04/06/11
If you could get a big pack of those extra large condiment cups I'd think that'd work too. Mmmm pudding, I've been meaning to try to make a dark chocolate pudding and coconut pudding concoction. I will post results when I am less lazy :p
I'm hoping for something akin to Mounds but in pudding form.
Seina at 8:36PM on 04/06/11