Home Made Dark Chocolate Low Fat Pudding

If you're like me, anything "chocolate" is a favorite.  Except maybe the hot pepper chocolate bars, those are kind of, well, scary.  They don't taste very good either.  I love pudding, but I don't like instant pudding.  The pudding that you have to cook on the stove is very delicious, but a little time consuming.  It's also not the healthiest alternative to deserts.
I was watching a medical show and the topic was how to get rid of belly fat.  A hot topic these days.  One thing that was stated as a belly fat fighter, was dark chocolate.  The darker the better.  Sounds too good to be true, so I thought I better act quick before that tip is recanted.

My Grandmothers Homemade Jello Salad recipe is a favorite one on this blog.  Every week, people from all over the world, visit the "Grandma's Jello Salad" blog page.  In the recipe Grandma shares how to make a homemade fruit pudding.  It's delicious.  I was talking to her the other day and told her I was going to try to modify it to make chocolate pudding.  She said to go ahead and let her know how it turned out.  Well, it turned out amazingly well!  It's a versatile recipe, by adding butterscotch chips, vanilla flavoring or use fruit juice instead of milk, this pudding can be made to suit any tastes!

Home Made Dark Chocolate Low Fat Pudding:

1 egg, beaten

1 cup 2% milk

3 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons sugar

1 pinch kosher salt

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate Hershey kisses)

In a small bowl add the flour and 1 tablespoon of the milk, mix into a paste, add a little more milk from the 1 cup if needed.  This will keep the flour from clumping.

Add the milk and egg to a small saucepan over medium heat, and heat through

Add the flour paste and continue to whisk

Add the pinch salt

The pudding will thicken quickly, so don't take your eyes from it

Once the pudding starts to thicken lower the heat and add the chocolate chips

Mix well until the chocolate has melted

Taste to see if you need the sugar, add more or less to your tastes

I only added the sugar because dark chocolate can be a bit bitter for young tastes and I wanted my son to enjoy the pudding too, so I added 2 teaspoons raw sugar to it.  

No need to chill until set, it will already be thick, and warm pudding is always tastier than cold.  Cold chocolate pudding is delicious too, but I prefer warm.  

This would be a wonderful pie filling as well.  Add some fruit and you've got a fantastic, easy, fancy desert.  

Purple Choco' Berry Popsicle or Smoothie, Healthy, low fat!

 Purple Choco' Berry Popsicle or Smoothie, Healthy, low fat!

My son and his best friend were enjoying a very warm day outside.  It was time for lunch.  The battle was on! Trying to get these two to stop playing, long enough to eat, is nearly impossible.  What works best? Bribery.  Yes.  Bribery.

While they were eating their lunch, I started the Popsicle-making process.  They were watching as I put their favorite things in the blender.  I didn't bother telling them that I was using all non-fat dairy products, as well as, no sugar added frozen fruits.  I used honey to sweeten, which added to the bribe. I don't know a lot of kids who don't love honey. I really like buying the frozen berries because the only ingredients are, the berries. No extra sugar, or preservatives.  I don't have to worry about spoilage, very low cost as well.  I use them for many things.  Very versatile, as well as delicious.

Did it work? Beautifully, as you can see.  They thought they were getting a treat by getting a Popsicle.  I knew they were getting lots of good vitamins and minerals to go along with their healthy lunch.


I have a two-Popsicle freezer mold, so I used the remainder of the mixture to make myself an 8oz smoothie.  I put a scoop of my favorite protein powder in it, added ice and more non-fat, organic milk, then enjoyed my own special treat!

Purple Choco' Berry Popsicle or Smoothie, Healthy, low fat

1/2 cup of Low Fat, organic Chocolate milk
1/2 cup of 2% organic white milk
1 cup of low fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries
1 tablespoon honey (more or less to taste)

Place ingredients into a blender and puree until smooth.  Pour into Popsicle molds or add extra milk, water, or (as I did) ice cubes to turn into a smoothie.

You may also want to add some more liquid if you see your mixture is too thick to puree well.  It will freeze anyway, just don't go overboard, so the flavors won't suffer.

If you don't like cottage cheese, yogurt would be a good substitution.  However, I find yogurt to contain such a large amount of sugar that I don't use it frequently, outside of enjoying one serving in a given day.  One teaspoon of sugar is about 4.2 grams.  The drinkable yogurt we have has 14grams of sugar in a 3.1fl oz bottle, that is roughly equivalent to, 3 teaspoons of sugar. There are benefits to yogurt, but as with anything, too much of a good thing is not good.  Let me also point out, that the cottage cheese is not identifiable in the finished product.  The flavors are so beautifully compatible, it doesn't make a huge difference.