Sunday, August 12, 2012

184/656 - Chocolate amaretti puddings

Now here's a recipe I don't think I will be doing again. I am still unsure if there was an error in the list of ingredients or if the problem was a user error given that I; a) had Trev assisting me (no offence Trev. It's just that too many cooks...) and b) was making these puddings quite late at night. 

To be fair, the end result was very yummy and I certainly did not hear any complaints from the dining party. I served these with Madagascan vanilla bean ice cream and the room went very quiet as dessert was consumed. 

The execution of this recipe was what left me unconvinced. One of the steps was to soak crumbled amaretti biscuits in milk and cream. The resulting mixture was very, very wet and not at all what I expected. It was the final step of folding the whipped egg whites through the chocolate mixture that convinced me there was something very wrong. How on earth do you fold egg whites through liquid? 

I continued to crumble amaretti biscuits into my chocolate mixture until I think I may have quadrupled the suggested amount, but at least ended up with a much thicker mixture that was able to accept the egg whites without killing the air in them completely.  

The finished puddings were very small and flat and I was even more concerned about this. Luckily I had made two extra puddings and so Trev and I fell on our swords and entered the uncharted area that was the pudding taste test.  

The puddings were actually really lovely, with a nice little bitter kick from the amaretti biscuits. Not surprising really given how many I added to my mixture! There was also a toffee base under the chocolate layer which  made the puddings quite interesting to eat.  

I was flicking through my friend's rainbow version of this book yesterday hoping to get an answer to the mystery of my little flat puddings as I had read that there were some recipe adjustments made in the later version. To my surprise I could not find it listed in there at all. 

Happy to chalk this one up as one of life's little cooking mysteries then. 

4 comments:

  1. Hi Kate,

    I can't find this recipe anywhere in my "rainbow" version of the book. Perhaps it was an error and it's not in the newer version? After seeing these I felt like some chocolate pudding so I made the self saucing chocolate pudding on page 317. I made the individuals in ramekins and they turned out really nice, especially good on a wintery night.

    Tracey.

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    1. Hi Tracey. I always like to give Stephanie the benefit of the doubt, however I suspect on this occasion you might be right.

      I love that this post inspired you to eat chocolate, how fabulous! I made the chocolate self saucing pudding in August of last year and I agree it is a wonderful recipe. Good to hear it also works well when made as individual serves. I am sure that helps with portion control, something I struggle with when it comes to chocolate x

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