Mocha Pudding Cups

In a hurry for a quick, easy to make, homemade dessert right from your pantry? You're in luck! These mini-pastry cups, made with Good Cook's Dessert Bar Pan, are a cross between a pie crust and shortbread. The best thing about them is that the crust doesn't require rolling or chilling! You can mix it up and immediately press it into the pan, which saves lots of time!

Fill the cups with coffee-infused chocolate pudding and sprinkle the tops with whatever garnish you have laying around (I used toffee bits, but you could use chopped nuts, chocolate shavings, cookie bits, or anything else you like) and you're ready to go! If you don't like the skin that forms on top of cooked pudding, you can cool the pudding and the cups separately, then fill the cups with pudding whenever you're ready (which is what I did.) Alternatively, you can bake and cool the cups and pour the warm pudding directly into the cups. Either way, make sure you cool the cups before you take them out of the pan. It doesn't take long, but if they aren't cool, they will crumble.

I tried baking the cups with and without pie weights, and I found that they are not necessary! I actually found that they cook more evenly without them.

Enjoy!

Mocha pudding cups
by Jennifer
Adapted from these recipes: The Splendid Table's Shortcut Piecrust and Hershey's Quick Creamy Chocolate Pudding

Makes 12

Pie crust:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Pudding:
3 1/4 cups milk, divided
2 Tablespoons ground coffee
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Garnish for tops of pudding cups, if desired

For the cups:
Heat oven to 350°F. In a small bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, and salt. Drizzle the melted butter over the dry ingredients and mix well. Place a scant Tablespoonful of dough into each cup of the Good Cook Dessert Bar Pan and press dough onto bottom and halfway up the sides of each cup. This will be a very thin layer and you'll be able to see the pan through the dough- that's OK! It will bake up just fine. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and place pan on a wire rack. Let cool completely before removing cups from the pan and setting aside to fill with pudding.

For the pudding:
Mix one cup of the milk and ground coffee in a small saucepan. Stirring occasionally, bring almost to a boil over medium heat, then remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, whisk together the cornstarch, sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Slowly whisk in the remaining 2 1/4 cups of (still cold) milk. Place this mixture over medium heat and whisk often, cooking until it is warm. At this point, pour the warm coffee milk mixture through a strainer and into the pudding mixture. Once the mixture is smooth and all of the milk is incorporated, use the Good Cook Silicone Spatula to stir, scraping the sides of the pan down often to prevent lumps from forming around the edges. Bring the mixture to a boil, then cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and butter until completely incorporated.

Transfer the pudding to a bowl, cover with a piece of waxed paper, and move to the refrigerator. When the pudding is set and cooled, fill the cups with pudding and top with garnish, if desired.

P.S. This is our 1,000th post to the blog. - 37 Cooks