Chocolate Coupes

 This has been an extremely long, eventful, but fun weekend. Basically, I am procrastinating on the actual important thing I need to get done like midterms and I am in the full midst of an obsessive baking episode. Honestly, not the worst way to deal with mental illness by any stretch of the imagination. I figured I've got 185 recipes to get through, and while technically I'm giving myself two years, meaning 185 recipes/104 weeks = a little less than two recipes per week, I figure why not go the extra mile and crank out as many of these simple-enough, seasonally agnostic ones while I don't have much else going on in my life and I have a very nice kitchen and a ton of kitchen supplies to work with. I quit my job for this, after all. Might as well put this free time to use. The sacrifice is that I do not plan to make myself any real dinners this week - I will be living entirely off of dessert (I do have a savory recipe planned, but still, it's part of this project). I'm an adult, I can do what I want.

The Chocolate Coupes from What's for Dessert were one of the recipes that seemed perfect for this mini baking binge. A coupe is actually the name of the glass that you're supposed to serve it in (I doubt my shitty Target glass qualifies as a "coupe", but who cares). The name doesn't really refer to a single dessert, but simply anything you can serve in a glass parfait-style. In this case, it's a very classic chocolate pudding layered with unsweetened whipped cream and crushed chocolate wafers (Claire recommends Nabisco Famous; I couldn't find those, so I just used Oreos). To be honest, it's the type of recipe that I would usually flip past because it sounds so simple. Don't get me wrong, it sounds delicious, but I'd rather make something like a fruit tart or an upside-down cake, one of those centerpiece desserts that feel like art, like something you're proud of. However, having to go through every recipe in this book is really teaching me that there's beauty in simplicity. A few days ago, I made Claire's Salted Caramel Pudding, and not only was it delicious, but it also felt like something very elegant and appropriate for a formal dessert. With that in mind, I approached this recipe without judgment.

It's funny, I've only come around to really liking fruit desserts, I'd say, within the last couple of years. Before that, I have always been a chocolate person. I think I take after my parents, especially my mom, in that respect. She goes to See's Candies probably a few times a week and knows the manager on a personal level. We love that for her. Point is, "chocolate is delicious" is one of the few facts of life I knew early on. Interestingly, I feel like I've seen a lot of anti-chocolate sentiment in the food world lately from people I admire. I have heard Molly Baz, on several occasions, express her dislike for chocolate. Various chefs and food writers seem to be opening up about how they'd take fruit desserts over chocolate any day. Even Claire has said a few times, both in her books and on her YouTube channel, that she doesn't like desserts that are super intensely chocolaty, or that feel like you need a sip of water with every bite. I will not bow down to those who know a lot more about food than I do. Sure, I don't want chocolate every day, but I can definitely appreciate a very unabashed chocolate dessert, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Perhaps some of this has to do with the fetish so many people have with hyper-seasonal produce, but let's be honest, there's not really a lot going on in early March. And I think these farmers' market-less times of the year are when chocolate deserves to have its moment.

This recipe uses both cocoa powder and melted semisweet chocolate, as well as some optional instant coffee granules. This might sound dumb, but I just recently discovered the differences between all those types of chocolate. I had thought "semisweet" was equivalent to milk chocolate and "bittersweet" to dark, but in this recipe, Claire specifies using chocolate with 64-70% cacao content - milk chocolate hovers in the 30-50% range. So I decided the chocolate labeled in grocery stores as "dark" would better suit this recipe. Too bad I had already bought a Pound Plus worth of milk chocolate for all my "semisweet" needs, oops.

The process of this recipe is very similar to that of the Salted Caramel Pudding - whisk together some eggs, sugar, cornstarch, and cocoa powder, then combine with warm milk, add some chocolate and butter to melt with the residual heat of the milk, and chill. It makes sense - the two are basically the same dessert in different flavors. I decided to get a little bit fussy with assembly and use some homemade piping bags, simply because I really hate the shape of the glass I bought, and I thought this technique would make it more precise-looking and easier to maneuver. 

I think I can now say with confidence that I am a pudding person. This can simply be a very good chocolate pudding recipe that you can eat straight out of the bowl. Growing up, on very rare occasions, my mom would get Kozy Shack chocolate pudding from the grocery store, and this recipe brought back those memories which I think is really nice. The whipped cream and chocolate cookies aren't necessary, but they help jazz the pudding up - the cookies add a fun textural element while the unsweetened whipped cream provides a flavor contrast to the intense, slightly sweetened pudding. This dessert kind of reminded me of those plastic cups of chocolate pudding with crushed Oreos and gummy worms that were supposed to look like dirt - I know that's a really strange comparison, but those who get it get it. I mean it as a compliment.

For some reason, this still didn't feel like a "fancy" dessert to me, but it was really delicious nonetheless. I'm very happy that this project is making me develop new appreciations for desserts that might not have been on my horizon otherwise. Now I think I can pretty confidently say that I love pudding and that it might just be my new go-to dessert to whip up a big bowl of and eat all by myself while laying in bed and watching TV. That is, after I make the 176 other recipes I've committed myself to.

Verdict: 9/10