Home and Gear [1404.22]

Chocolate Custard

I've been on the look out for desserts that don't involve adding flour and sugar, so when I saw an easy recipe for chocolate pots de creme on the Food Network, I knew I had to try it.

Pot de creme is a smooth French dessert custard (literally "pot of cream"). In addition to the blender recipe I viewed from Pioneer Woman, I found two more easy recipes, one blender and one saucepan. By the way, I highly recommend reading the Pioneer Woman write up, which includes some notes on how to pronounce "pots de creme" (I'm taking the easy way out and just calling it "chocolate custard").

First I tried the two blender recipes. They were both really good, but the Pioneer Woman version was not as rich, since it uses coffee instead of half and half. The second recipe was not as smooth (I think I took too much care not to overscald the half and half, so it didn't melt the chocolate as well).

I decided to perfect a hybrid of the two recipes. The originals were so easy and so good, I didn't even try the saucepan recipe, though I did use its egg tempering concept. After several trials, below is what I came up with for my pots de creme "chocolate custard" recipe. See photo at left (though all recipes look alike). It uses coffee (for deeper flavor), half and half (for richness), and whole eggs (rather than just yolks), which are used straight from the refrigerator (no need to warm them on the counter to room temperature).

Ingredients
  4 large eggs
  2 T vanilla extract
  1 pinch salt
  8.6 oz (1 C) half and half, very hot
  12 oz semisweet chocolate chips
  4 oz (1/2 C) strong coffee, very hot

Directions
1. Mix eggs, vanilla, and salt.  Temper the eggs with 1/4 C of the 
   half and half, mixing well. Slowly mix in remaining half and half.
2. Put egg mixture into blender and blend briefly, until smooth.
3. Add chocolate and blend briefly.
4. With blender still on, drizzle in hot coffee and blend until 
   smooth, scraping sides if necessary.
4. Pour into individual serving containers, or one large container
   (not as fancy looking when served, but takes up less space in the
   frig).
5. Chill 3-4 hours or overnight.

Makes twelve 2.5 ounce servings (by weight), each about 190 calories, 5 grams protein, and 18 grams net carbs.

Disclaimer (to paraphrase a note from the one of the recipes): There is always some risk involved with recipes that use uncooked eggs. In the above recipes, the eggs are heated by hot liquids. You should however exercise caution if you are serving small children, elderly persons, pregnant women, or anyone with a compromised immune system.

Additional notes

• 12 servings is equal to 8 full servings plus 8 half servings
• Dave likes his frozen for 15 minutes, for a colder, firmer dessert.
• We usually don't bother topping with whipped cream.
• I use a microwave oven to heat the coffee and half and half, taking them to the hairy edge of superheating (<1min for the water, 1min plus <1min for the half and half)
• Always blend with the blender cover in place!
• When I first started researching recipes (not very long ago!), I found a dedicated potsdecreme.com website, which unfortunately has since been moved to a more difficult to read set of pages here and here.

This article is part of the seeking42 recipe series.