Desserts: Chocolate Pudding

This is a very quick and easy to prepare. This is from my mother's diary.

Preparation Time: 0 mins
Cooking time: 10-15 mins
Refrigeration time: 3-4 hrs
Serves: 6 (150 ml serving)

Ingredients:
1 lt milk.
6 tea spoons vanilla flavored custard powder
0.5 cups drinking chocolate.
2 tea spoons cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ghee
0.5 cup cashew or almond for garnishing.
Method:

1. Take a think bottomed pan/wok. Put in the ghee and heat it.

2. Add the drinking chocolate and cocoa powder and mix it well. The idea is to make a paste of this thing. If the amount of ghee is less, add few milliliters of water and make a paste of the cocoa+drinking powder. Roast this mixture for a couple of minutes. Reduce the flame to medium, else the paste may burn.

3. Take a cup of milk from the 1lt and put in the custard powder. Dissolve the custard powder in the cold milk only.

4. Pour in the remaining milk in the chocolate paste and increase the flame to high. Stir well to mix the chocolate paste.

5. Allow it to boil once and then add the custard powder solution. Keep stirring else custard may form knots. Boil it once and then add sugar. Keep it on medium flame for a couple of minutes and turn off the stove.

6. Slightly roast the cashew/almond, either on stove or microwave. The idea is to make them slightly crispy. When cold, coarsely ground them into very small pieces, but not powder.

7. Pour the pudding in the the serving bowl and garnish with cashew.

8. Keep in freezer until cold, but don't allow it to freeze.

Tips:
1. More the fat content in the milk, smoother the pudding will be. I generally use tonned milk (3% fat). If your lifestyle permits, you can use whole milk as well (~6% fat).

2. Try to consume the pudding within 1 day. Any thing more than that and you will feel its taste changing a bit (not spoilt, but it doesn't taste the same)

3. If you like more chocolate flavor, you may reduce the quantity of drinking chocolate and increase the amount of cocoa powder by a few spoons.

4. The strength of chocolate depends upon the brand of product used. I prefer to use Cadbury cocoa and drinking chocolate. You may need to tweak your portions depending upon your brand's quality.