Just Add Beer: Chocolate Stout Pudding

Halloween is over, which means that it’s officially the season of big family dinners, food comas, and decadent desserts. If you’re looking for a tasty dish boozy enough to get you through an evening with a bunch of relatives who just have to know everything about your personal life so they can comment on it until they’re blue in the face and you’ve passed out under the dining room table, this is the recipe for you! Adapted from The Beeroness, this pudding recipe is rich, chocolatey, creamy, and easy ­ perfect for a winter dessert.

​Pudding:

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• 4 oz chopped chocolate
• 3⁄4 cup heavy cream
• 3⁄4 cup chocolate stout or other dark beer (I used Charlie & the Chocolate Stout from Books & Brews)
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbs butter
• 1⁄2 tsp vanilla extract

For this recipe, you will want to whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and chopped chocolate in a medium pan off the heat. Add the heavy cream, beer, and egg yolk, and place the pan on a burner on medium. Whisk continuously until the mixture begins to thicken (1­-2 minutes). Remove the pan from heat, then stir in the butter and vanilla extract until the butter is melted. Pour the pudding into serving containers and chill at least 2 hours and preferable overnight. To serve, you can make up a batch of boozy whipped cream or just do what I did and pour a little Bailey’s on top. This is a great recipe to experiment with ­ different types of chocolate and beer bring out different flavors in each other, so I recommend making this more than once to see what combination is your favorite. Some suggestions are below.
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• Charlie and the Chocolate Stout (Books & Brews) with Baker’s 60% Dark Chocolate
• Moloko Milk Stout (Three Floyds) with Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate
• Shadow Boxer (Indiana City) with Espresso Dark Chocolate
• Swiss Cocoa (Deviate Brewing) with Milk Chocolate
• Peppermint Deep (Mashcraft) with Dark Chocolate

These are just suggestions, however, and especially now that dark beer season is in full swing there are hundreds of combinations to try. Happy cooking!