Recipe: Mocha Pudding Epic Fail
- 2 cups evaporated milk
- Small cup of coffee essence (I used 1/4 cup as that was leftover from our morning coffee; the more coffee you use, the more coffee you will taste)
- 1 package chocolate pudding
- 2 eggs (yolks and whites separated)
- Sugar (I used 1/4 cup total)
- Pistachios (I used about 1/2 cup)
Here are her directions:
- Prepare the pudding with the milk and coffee mixed in.
- Add two egg yolks, sugar, crushed pistachios.
- Put in a buttered pyrex.
- Beat egg whites with sugar and crushed pistachios and place on top of mocha mixture.
- Put in the oven just until the meringue gets a little color.
I made the instant pudding as instructed by her except I didn’t put in the crushed pistachios because I thought that would be a weird texture. I used instant because I wasn’t sure how cooking the non-instant version would go with the whole baking thing. This thinking turned out to be dumb and unnecessary.
And then I made beautiful, frothy, perfect egg whites. But I forgot to add the sugar and crushed pistachios, as instructed, so I added them in, which totally deflated the froth and then it wouldn’t froth again. But I didn’t want to lose all the pistachios that I had opened and crushed so I layered this mixture on top of the chocolate that was in the baking dish. Also a pretty dumb mistake, I’m guessing, since this changed the composition of what was going in the oven.
So then I tried to just froth up more egg whites and, for whatever reason, I wasn’t achieving beautiful peaks as I had previously. Still, I threw it on the baking dish and baked it at 350 degrees until the egg whites started to brown.
It was soup all evening, even after hours in the fridge. Tasty chocolate soup with a hint of pistachio and coffee, but soup. Not something presentable to serve guests for Thanksgiving or ever. 24 hours later it was still soup. Womp womp. Epic fail.
Here’s what I would do next time:
- Make the pudding (with or without finely crushed pistachios) a day before and let it set as directed on the box for 24 hours.
- Then the next day, I would froth the eggs properly the first time, put on top of the firm pudding, bake at 350 degrees until brown and then leave longer to set so it’s really meringue-y, and then enjoy. I think that is probably the way to go.
In the meantime, feel free to make fun of my epic fail. My ego can take it.
Comments
Could your translation have mistaken evaporated milk instead of sweetened condensed milk?
It definitely says “evaporated milk” BUT I love condensed milk and think that might be worth a shot. What a good idea. Maybe I’ll try this recipe two more times: once, the way I think I can improve it, and the second time with condensed milk instead. Thanks for the suggestion!