Further culinary adventures

So! After reading Zahde's entry about making butterscotch pudding from scratch, I decided to break out JoC and see if I could do it too back on Monday night. Wolf was bemoaning a lack of chocolate, so I looked up the chocolate pudding recipie and got to work.

The following evening, I had a lovely chocolate milkshake/hot cocoa base. Wolf and IDK drank it up and declared it absolutely wonderful. I wondered where the hell I had gone wrong. After reviewing my actions, I determined that one: I didn't put in enough cornstartch and two: I used a whisk.

So I tried again, this time using more cocoa powder (as I didn't have baking chocolate), more cornstarch and using my snifty new bamboo slotted spoon. I also made sure to cook it longer. I could immediately see the difference.

Last night, I was informed that my pudding had two distinct layers of thickness, one about a quarter inch thick and more pudding-like then the runnier underlayer. I discussed what I had done differently with Wolf and we determined that the whisk should have been used. I was assured it was still quite delicious, just a surprise in the texture contrasts.

Cooking is hard. And I want to make jam and applesauce? *sigh*