I was lucky enough to eat this Italian chocolate pudding always in its birth place, Piedmont. I was always promising myself to prepare it at home and I finally did it some weeks ago.
I was lucky again to try the “right” recipe, the one I don’t really believe I am going to change because it gave me the best memory I had of the Piedmont ones.
I’d say that the main difference between this Piedmont specialty (by the way, it is called Bonet) and a common chocolate pudding is that it is much more…tasty. It sounds strange for a pudding, but I can’t find another word that explains better this opinion of mine.
I found this bonet recipe in this Italian blog and changed only a couple of details.
What to do then? Try it and let me know your opinion about it :-)!
- 2 cups + 1 Tbsp whole milk
- ½ cup sugar
- 100 g amaretto cookies (about 5 medium ones, about ⅔ cup)
- 2/5 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- a little bit less than ¼ cup coffee
- 4 eggs
- for the caramel:
- 1 cup sugar
- some lemon juice drops
- p.s.- sorry for the fractionated quantities but it happens when converting from grams.
- Begin preparing the caramel. Put the sugar into a small pan with the lemon juice and let it melt, taking care not to overcook it. I don't mix, just move the pan to distribute it better while melting. A great tutorial for preparing caramel is David Lebovitz's one.
- Taking care not to burn your fingers, distribute the caramel inside the small pudding molds trying to cover also their internal sides.
- Dissolve the cocoa powder into the milk and put it into a pan and turn on the gas. Let it cook until boiling.
- In the meanwhile beat the eggs with the sugar and then slowly add the hot milk, always stirring.
- Reduce the amaretto cookies into crumbs and add them to the mixture. Add the coffee and mix until well combined.
- Using a spoon, fill the molds leaving ½in from the borders.
- Turn on the oven to 356°F/180°C and place a big baking pan where you will set all molds inside.
- Boil some water and fill the pan around the molds to cook them in bain marie.
- Bake for about 30 minutes and do the toothpick test to check when they're done.
- Let them cool inside the pan filled with water until water is at room temperature.
- Cover the molds with plastic wrap or alluminium and keep in the fridge at least a couple of hours before serving.
- To serve them, carefully using a round knife dettach the pudding from the mold and turn them upside down on a serving plate.
- Buon appetito!
