Tuesday Tips: Pandemic Pots de Creme

Another recipe! What is happening here? Am I turning into a recipe person?

No. But it's sort of hard to spread the gospel of the easiest, most delicious dessert in the world without giving you a recipe. That would just be cruel. And really, if you like chocolate, you need to try this.

"This" is pots de creme. It is, apparently, a very traditional French dessert. Not always chocolate in France, but always chocolate in my kitchen, which is definitely not French. And this is definitely not a traditional pots de creme recipe. I suspect a traditional French cook would not even recognize this, but it's absurdly simple and delicious, so we're running with it.

There are dozens upon dozens of recipes for chocolate pots de creme, which is sort of like a cross between a chocolate mousse and chocolate pudding. It's what I imagine the chocolate river in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory would taste like.

I had never had it nor heard of it, however, until the MiL made it many years ago, using a recipe she got from her MiL.

Her MiL--A.'s grandmother, known as Bae--had a definite dramatic flair and loved a good story. When she and her husband were in their sixties, they left Blackrock to the care of their adult children and spent a couple of winters running a hotel on the Carribean island of Bequia.

I mean, why not, right?

I have no idea where they came up with this plan, but there is no doubt that Bae got many, many stories out of the experience. Some were about eating whale meat. Some were about the sailboat--pleasantly named The Friendship Rose--that brought supplies to Bequia and was the only way to get to the "big town" on the bigger island. And one was about the pots de creme.

Bae claimed she got the recipe from the cook at the hotel. The MiL, however, tells me that the recipe actually came from Bae's copy of Joy of Cooking. It's still in the newer editions, too, although the version Bae made is now listed as a variant of the main recipe.

Apocryphal origin story aside, she did indeed make this recipe a lot on the island for the guests at the hotel. The recipe as written has exactly five ingredients: chocolate chips, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract. In a traditional pots de creme recipe*, the ingredients are combined on the stove top and then baked in a water bath, like a custard.

This recipe, however, is made in a blender (or food processor). The milk is heated very hot, them dumped in a blender with all the rest of the ingredients to be whizzed around until smooth. The hot milk melts the chocolate chips and cooks the egg. The resulting liquid is refrigerated until it's chilled and is solidified a bit. This method is much more to my taste than messing around with a pot on the stove and a water bath in the oven.

Given the problem of supplies on Bequia, I asked A. how his grandmother got milk. He said they used evaporated milk, powdered milk, and shelf-stable milk in cartons. 

I've always made this recipe with whole milk, but I was intrigued by this. What if I could make it with evaporated milk? If I could, then it could be made with almost all pantry ingredients. (The exception being the eggs.)

So I tried it with one of the cans of evaporated milk I keep in the pantry. I always double the original recipe for our larger family, so I was delighted to find that a regular can of evaporated milk is exactly 1.5 cups. Which is exactly the amount needed for a double recipe. 

Serendipity.

We had the evaporated-milk pots de creme Sunday night, and I could not tell a difference in taste or texture from the whole milk version. If anything, it was a little thicker, since, of course, evaporated milk is thicker than whole milk. 

A. thought he could detect a slight difference in mouth feel and taste, but he enthusiastically endorses both versions. As do the children.

So I think you can pretty much use any sort of milk you have on hand. Most recipes online call for cream, too, which I have never tried in this. The versions with cream might be better, but I assure you that you can make this with any kind of milk, and it will be delicious.

Well, maybe not skim milk. That might be too thin. But you can definitely make it with evaporated milk, which pleases me greatly.

So if you bought evaporated milk this spring when the world went crazy and we all went along with it, but now you don't know what to do with that can? Now you know. Make this. You won't be sorry.

Pandemic Pots de Creme (makes enough for six generous servings)

Ingredients

1.5 cups milk or evaporated milk

2 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, dark, or milk, depending on how sweet you like things)

2 eggs

3-4 tablespoons sugar (adjust depending on your preferences and the sweetness of your chocolate)

a pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

Heat the milk until bubbly on the edges, either in the microwave or a pan on the stove. It will probably get a skin on the top. That's okay.

Put all the rest of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend for about ten seconds, just to break the chocolate chips up a bit. This makes it easier for them to get totally melted in the next step. 

Pour the hot milk in all at once and blend until smooth, leaving the round stopper piece off the top of your blender or food processor and covering the top opening with a dish towel. This is an important safety step whenever you're blending any hot liquid. 

Pour the mixture into small bowls or ramekins, then refrigerate at least two hours, until thoroughly chilled.

Serve with cream on top. You can use one of those cans of whipped cream, I guess, if you're sticking to pantry items here. Or you can really go for broke and do like us: Just pour some cream directly on top to make a lake of cream over the chocolate. You get more cream this way, without all that air from whipping to get in the way. 

This must be the least-fancy recipe ever when it comes to ingredients and method, but it yields a very fancy-looking dessert. Even if you don't have cute little ramekins to serve it in. Or even matching bowls.

I, obviously, have neither. And it doesn't matter, because this magic recipe is delicious no matter what it's served in.

I think we could all use a little more liquified chocolate in our lives, right? Well, here you go. Chocolate comfort for a very strange time.

Update #1: I no longer use any of the added sugar in this recipe. It's sweet enough for us without it.

Update #2: I was having trouble for awhile with this not thickening when it was refrigerated, and I finally determined that doubling the recipe was causing the problem. So now, if want to make the quantity as written in this recipe, I do half at a time in the blender. No more problems with thickening.