My husband’s birthday is on January 6th. Which is also Epiphany, sometimes known as Three Kings Day. Which is to say, it falls very close to Christmas. Very close. It makes it harder to celebrate- we’re all gift-ed, family-ied, and dinner-ed out. In years past, we’ve been in Disneyworld, had a large dinner party at our house and gone drinking (that was many, many years past). This year it was just a family dinner- us and our kids. My mom also stopped by and joined us.
The deal with birthday dinners in our house is that the birthday person gets to choose the menu, even if it doesn’t match. My husband is easy- every year he chooses the same thing: steak and egg noodles with lots of butter, garlic and salt. He usually picks some kind of chocolate cake. This year he picked a chocolate cream pie. Of course, because he’s my husband, he wanted boxed chocolate pudding, not homemade. At least he asked for homemade whipped cream.
Birthday Chocolate Pudding Pie
Ingredients:
Pudding:
1-2 boxes of chocolate pudding (or make your own pudding. I like this recipe.)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/4 cup whole milk
Whipped Cream:
1-2 cups heavy cream
1-2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the crust:
1 store-bought graham cracker or chocolate cookie crust (or make your own with this recipe)
Instructions:
Make the pudding according to the package directions, substituting half of the milk with whole cream. This makes for a very thick, almost mousse-like filing. Pour into the cookie crust (I didn’t bother to blind bake it. But you could.).
In a large bowl using a hand or stand mixer (or a whisk but be ready for a workout) beat the cream until it starts to form soft peaks. Add the vanilla and sugar and beat until the peaks are a little bit firmer (this is really to taste/texture- I like my cream slightly firmer than most people). Smooth this over the chocolate pudding pie and place in the refrigerator to set before serving.
Serve with nothing else- you could, I suppose, get fancy and put chocolate shavings on top. Or sprinkle it with cocoa. But it doesn’t really need it.
Try not to eat it all at once. My toddler gobbled it up and immediately demanded, “More please.”
Even the baby got in on the action:
There wasn’t much left and my husband has been slowly whittling away at it over the last few days. Very yummy. Also, very easy.
