May I launch the first "nummy!" into cyberspace? Thank you.

That sounds delicious. It would be even better if mere mention of the word "pudding" did not start the "Giga Pudding" earworm. No, I'm not going to link to it. You have been warned.

My favorite substitution for vanilla extract in many dessert-related activities: bourbon. Tremendous yum with chocolate or caramel.

(Vanilla extract has the same alcohol content too, so it's not a more "spirited" substitution except by suggestion!)

Yummy healthy* and vegan** chocolate pudding:

Whisk 2 x 359g pack of silken tofu in food processor/blender until it looks like thick smooth cream.
Add a couple of tablespoons of soft brown sugar or demarara sugar and mix in.
Melt 200g of good dark (e.g. 85% cocoa) chocolate in the microwave.
Pour the chocolate into the whisked tofu and mix in.
Add a couple of teaspoons of orange oil (to taste), mixing in.
Allow to cool and place in the refrigerator to chill.
Use cook's prerogative to scrape out the bowl!

*Tofu is healthy and dark chocolate is good for you...
**So long as you use decent dark chocolate without milk in it

ctate @3:
If you're using a medium to high end vanilla extract, it may well be bourbon.

dcb @4:
I know quite a few vegans who don't eat chocolate because the added sugar was probably typical white sugar, which is filtered through bone char (among other reasons, including that many varieties even of dark chocolate still have some amount of dairy added).

geekosaur @5: I got this from my sister, who doesn't eat dairy, and I've made it using chocolate which doesn't contain milk (as I specified above). Obviously if you know/suspect your vegan friends won't eat chocolate that's not guaranteed vegan then you make it with vegan-approved chocolate. And with unrefined sugar, naturally.

And it may be better with 300 g chocolate not 200 g as stated above - sorry!

dcb, I'm not familiar with orange oil. Is it going to give the pudding an orange flavor?

I keep mistyping "orange" as "organ" flavor, which sounds unappetizing.

Yes, orange oil/orange extract (edible essential oils - comes in a small bottle in the baking section in UK supermarkets). You could probably try with other flavours as well e.g. peppermint. The flavour is quite intense. I used Green & Blacks 85% chocolate (eating, not cooking); their Maya Gold is already orage flavoured so could also be used.

It's quite rich so this would probably make 6-8 portions. It also freezes and thaws just fine, so you can make yourself several little treats...

Do the capital T's in the recipe refer to the tablespoon unit of measure?

10
Yes.

geekosaur @5:
AFAIK "Bourbon vanilla" is the botanical variety, not the tincture base. That sounds like it'd be darn tasty, though. Hmm!

dcb @4:
If you add exactly the right amount of orange oil, the result will taste just like Tootsie Rolls®! I discovered experimentally at a homemade ice cream party once upon a time that the instantly-recognizable Tootsie Roll® flavor is pretty much just cocoa + orange at just the right balance. Doesn't take much orange.

For me the combination of chocolate and orange brings back memories of dishwashing at on breakfast crew in boarding school; people would pour out unconsumed orange juice and cocoa on the drain board and that's what it smelled like if you worked the front of the dishwasher.

T = Tablespoon = 15 mL

tsp = teaspoon = 5 mL

OtterB at #8: Organ-flavored.

I read in a book that when the manufacturer mixes a bad batch of paint and it accidentally congeals that's called "livering" because it looks like liver. Perhaps chocolate pudding can do that too.

dcb@9: their Maya Gold is already orage flavoured

Just the thing for the current stormy weather in the UK.

Evil. I'm at work and many hours away from anything resembling such goodies as chocolate pudding with orange flavoring.

I keep reading "Schadenpudding.". I suppose it could be made darker ...

@18

Kind of like Scalzi's Schadenfreude pie?

ctate @12:
I was unclear; several higher-end vanilla extracts explicitly say they use bourbon as the alcohol base instead of grain alcohol (others use other liquors).

ctate@12 and geekosaur@20: I do make homemade vanilla extract using good bourbon. Six months, as many slit vanilla beans as you can put into the narrow-mouthed bottle, cover with bourbon. Add new bourbon and shake when it no longer covers the beans. Yum!

Would anyone be willing to explain more about "good bourbon"?

TexAnne @22:
I never said anything about "good bourbon", being unconvinced that such a thing exists. :)

TexAnne @22 -- small batch single barrel bourbons, like Basil Hayden, are in fact much tastier than the blended stuff that's usually passed off on the unsuspecting. But then, I've tested a lot of single-malts in my day -- and the difference is very much like the difference between single malts and blended scotch whiskey (each one has a real taste that is just its own, not a batch of competing tastes that are supposed to work together but seldom do).

dcb, #4: I've sent that on to my partner's daughter who is vegan, thanks!

Jim, #14: Thanks also -- the "1t = 5ml" measurement is something I can wrap my brain around, which will be useful for things beyond the realm of cooking.

Lee @25: You're/she's welcome! Did you pass on the correction of 300g chocolate, not 200g? It is better for the extra.

TexAnne@22: Blantons (and I love the horse on the top of the cork), Rock Hill Farms - two rather nice single barrel bourbons which I have nestling in with my single malt collection. Bourbons are rather more like Irish whiskey than like Scotch whisky, being sweeter. They're not going to topple Talisker or 18yo Glenlivet from the top of my preference list, but I do enjoy them sometimes.

I made this with 100g of Droste pastilles. Yum. I then fed it to my partner-creature, who is laid up with a broken collarbone. He made a plaintive request that pudding should be chilled, and helped devour it.

Which brings me to my question... can we have an extension of Trauma and You, about what to do when you are the patient? For adrenalin is a hell of a drug, and even someone with decent first aid training can make some pretty stupid decisions in the aftermath of an accident.

Thena #19: it's a lot like Schadenfreude pie, but you eat it with a spoon.

Hope you're feeling better.

geekosaur @20:
I had no idea. Now I need to do a little shopping.

TexAnne @22:
The other recommendations so far are good. I'd add a few that have become favorites around here: Booker's and Baker's [two more higher-end products from the Jim Beam line] and Black Maple Hill. If you're looking for a good "well" bourbon, one that is inexpensive but highly drinkable for the price and mixes well, Maker's Mark or Four Roses are good options. I'm told the latter is very popular in Kentucky; take from that what you will.

Baker's is the one I recommend to single-malt drinkers who are interested in discovering bourbon. To my taste it has a smoky quality that puts it a bit closer to scotches.

I also cherish my bottle of single-barrel private-bottling Four Roses; alas irreplaceable. Four Roses has a program in which they'll send you samples straight from four or five barrels that are ready for bottling. You decide which you want, and they then bottle the whole barrel outright, label it for you, and ship you the lot. Our favorite liquor store does this periodically in connection with a local whisk[e]y club, and we got a bottle from last year's barrel. It's scrumptious but now sold out.

An astounding raw vegan chocolate pudding is described at http://www.beautiful-vegan.com/2009/04/blog-post.html

Uses avocados, cocoa powder, vanilla, and something sweet - they say agave nectar, but I used plain old sugar. The avocados need to be very ripe, of course.

My not-vegan but lactose-intolerant sister was very pleased.

I am pleased to have finally solved the Chocolate Pudding Mystery, to wit: why is it that I always manage to make chocolate soup and never chocolate pudding?

It turns out that cornstarch needs to get right up to the boiling point to properly thicken pudding. My ad-hoc double boiler setup is a thick plastic bowl on top of a saucepan, and a thick plastic bowl conducts heat too poorly to get the pudding hot enough.

I poured the whole mixture directly into the saucepan, turned the heat way down, and it firmed up very nicely.

I wonder how it would work with yogurt. Merav, and Jon, have problems with lactose. the protein ratio is different. Perhaps some ghee to put the fat back in.

I may have to play with this.

Tom Whitmore @24: small batch single barrel bourbons, like Basil Hayden, are in fact much tastier than the blended stuff that's usually passed off on the unsuspecting.

Ah, Basil Hayden. A while back, I was poking around at a genealogy site with PNH's data (and his permission), and came back to report that he might consider going to the liquor store, getting a bottle of one of Basil Hayden's offerings, and photoshopping a new label for it that said Old Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grand-Dad Whiskey.

Also, now I want pudding. And I don't even like pudding. Jim, you fiend.

You'll like this pudding, Elise.

Some years back, at a slush-kill Patrick was unable to attend, we brought a bottle of Basil Hayden so Patrick could be with us in spirit.

Like the really good Irish whiskies and single-malt Scotches (mostly Islay) I accidentally learned that I like the real, good, single bourbon. I a little glad that a) it is all EXPENSIVE and b) I only like it a shot or less at a time, so it isn't really worth it to buy a bottle. Plus except for the occasional bloody mary in preparation for or on an airplane flight, I pretty much gave up drinking hard liquor a long time ago.

A wee dram from a friend once in a while is sufficient, going to a tasting is too much. Unless I sit next to my Jim, who lets me have sniff and a wee sip if it smells good.

The saddest face I ever saw was a friend who was sharing out a very expensive bottle of scotch, I took a sniff and told him, "I can't swallow it, it smells too much like basic scotch..." (My dad's favorites were expensive blends, they always made me gag from the scent profile.) Actually the quote in the local area's regular con "one liner/non sequitur" Sunday 'zine was "Sorry, it won't swallow."

32
Terry, you might want to try home-made yogurt that is either whole-milk or low-fat. With home-made, you can let the culture do its thing until there's effectively no lactose left in it. (My father worked with someone who was severely lactose-intolerant, and could eat home-made yogurt but not commercial yogurt.)

Emily @31: Another option is the good ol' microwave. The first pudding I made from scratch was a recipe almost identical to this one, from a microwave cookbook.

Anything that requires a double boiler, like melting chocolate, can be done in the microwave, because there's no direct heat to scorch it. You just need to stop and stir every minute or so.

The cooking directions say to cook on high 3 min, then stir. Cook on high for 2 to 8 mins. more, until boiling and thickened, stopping every minute to stir to keep it smooth.

The leftovers used to separate a bit in the fridge overnight, but I'd just whisk it a bit, and it'd be fine.

I haven't made it in years. Maybe I need to rectify that!