Chocolate Pudding for Dinosaurs (and your kid, and you.)

Our friends just gave Isaac a book called Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. It's a super silly remake of the classic; a story you can giggle at while your kid looks on, a little confused. For example, the (sort of) smart and scheming dinosaurs tempt the sweet (and a little ditzy) Goldilocks to stay in their house with 3 bowls of chocolate pudding, of varying temperatures. Goldilocks eats all the pudding because it's so yummy, and then gets a tummy ache and wants to take a nap, poor thing.

This inspired a pudding making day and for this I thank you, you three dinosaurs!

Oh Goldilocks, doesn't this pudding look good!?

*Dinosaur Pudding

In a thick pot combine a little more than 1/3 cup cocoa with 1/3 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt.

Add 1/3 cup warm water and stir, or let your little one stir, until you get impatient and need to stir it yourself until its smooth and sort of like mud.

Turn on the burner to medium high and add 1 3/4 cup milk and stir a little more.

In a separate bowl or cup, mix 3 Tablespoons cornstarch with 1/4 cup milk until it's smooth and then pour that into the cocoa milk mixture and marvel at how quickly it becomes thick and yummy looking.

Turn the heat down and stir for a little longer.

Turn the heat off, add some vanilla extract, or if you are feeling daring, maybe some orange extract (I love a choco-orange combo) and pour into ramekins to chill. If you don't want a skin on top, immediately cover the pudding with plastic wrap. Though I would definitely advise a nice skin rather than hot plastic molecules going into the lovely pudding.

I know I have gone on and on about recipes being easy, but this one! Oh, this is seriously easy. And seriously delicious. Just check out the pics below as proof :)

La di da! I've been waiting hours for this moment!

Maybe if I put it on my face, I'll get more?

What!? I don't get another bowl!?

A note for parents: Be careful when you plan to make your pudding! Isaac requested it today after lunch. It was still a little early for his nap, so I thought the timing would be perfect. I thought we could make it together, and he would nap while it set. Then he would wake up hours later, and we would have a nice snack. Noooo way. He was so dang excited about the pudding that there was no napping at all. When I finally gave up and retrieved him from the crib, his first words were, "Is the pudding ready!!??"

*Adapted from the Joy of Cooking. I used their recipe as a guide, but with less sugar (it was still sweet!), and whole milk instead of half and half.