Scald 1 1/2 cups of milk in a heavy saucepan (look for tiny bubbles around the edge). Mix together the cornstarch, sugar, salt and cocoa, add the remaining 1/2 cup milk, and stir until well blended. Stir in the scalded milk and blend well. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat until thickened. Let the pudding boil for one minute while stirring briskly. Remove from heat, pour into a bowl and let cool for a few minutes. Stir in the vanilla, spoon into serving dishes.

You can eat the pudding warm (you probably -will- taste it while warm) or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. A little heavy cream over each serving is nice, maybe a little cookie along side . . . I never use salt and cut the sugar back to 3 Tbs. You can experiment a little. I usually use low fat or 1% milk. Nonfat is Ok too, but it does loose a little something. There's no need to use whole milk, but you can.

Use good quality cocoa and high quality vanilla extract. You can use vanilla sugar also, which is my favorite way. Take 1/2 a vanilla bean and slit it vertically and then cut each half into two or three pieces. Add the pieces to a cup of sugar, cover, and let it sit a few days. The sugar then becomes flavored by the vanilla. Remove the vanilla pieces and the sugar is ready to use.

This recipe allows for the formation of a "skin" on the top of the pudding. I've been told that by laying a piece of plastic wrap over the top while the pudding is setting up, the skin won't form. I've not tried that, so I don't know if it really works. I like that skin <g>.

rec. Food. Cooking