Chocolate-Cherry Pudding Pie!

Chocolate.  Again.  SOMEBODY STOP ME.

Might as well call my blog Chocolate, and Variations Thereof.  Or Baking with Chocolate: The Only Real Dessert.  Or simply The Chocolate Blog: Nicola's Quest to Satisfy Cravings and Drain Her Pocket Money on Weekends.

I know there are other desserts out there.  But I can't help it that chocolate is one of the few things that conveniently doesn't need an oven most of the time AND always tastes good.

Admittedly the quantity of chocolate I bought at the grocery store this week was borderline embarrassing.  There were only five things in my cart: chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, cocoa powder, and a pack of gum.  And an expensive five things they were.  The feeling of judgment emanating from the cashier was terribly uncomfortable.

At least I share my desserts.  Because if I were to eat today's pudding all by myself, you'd know there was something mentally wrong with me.  Although perhaps the fact that I'd rather spend my money on chocolate than clothes is already evidence enough...Hmm.

So, preamble aside, I spent several hours in a coffee shop yesterday afternoon trying to come up with something to bake.  There are SO MANY good things out there that I want to try.  They just all require oven time which is NOT happening in the heat with no AC.

Eventually, I decided on this recipe for a no-bake chocolate strawberry pie.  And then swapped cherries for strawberries because they're in season.  And I like them better.

There was also this weird (in my opinion) part of the crust recipe which required 30 wafer cookies.  Ummmmm what???  I will just use my leftover graham crumbs instead, thinks Nicola without going home first to check if she does indeed have the correct amount of crumbs to make an adequate substitution.

You will not be surprised then when I tell you that I was short on graham cracker crumbs this morning, and what was supposed to be a crust turned into a very dense base layer which I was barely able to spread thin enough to cover the 9" pan.  But I'm sure it will still taste fine.

The recipe also calls for a 1/2 tbsp of bourbon, and after purchasing all that chocolate I didn't think bourbon was in my budget, so I omitted that.  I also used dark chocolate instead of bittersweet for the pudding as I thought it would compliment the cherries better.

I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into when I decided to use cherries.  Pitting and slicing them was a nightmare.  It looked like there had been a massacre in my kitchen.

And MY NAILS.  They are still stained.  If this were a murder-mystery I would be the red-handed suspect.  Literally.

Several hours later, the verdict is in! The test kitchen says:

1.  DA-YUM.  That is great pudding.  It is so much better than a pudding mix.  If you can afford to lose six egg yolks I highly recommend giving it a go.  (I will be eating egg whites for a week).

2.  It is all pudding.  Where's the base?!?!?!?  I knew this would happen.  Oh well, the taste of the pudding overwhelmingly makes up for the lack of crust.

So who's still in Kingston and wants a slice?

Happy long weekend,

Nicola ♡