Decadent recipes for chocolate desserts

From classics such as chewy chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, to crazy candy creations such as Peanut Butter Cup and Snickers crunch brownies; whatever your guilty pleasure, we've got you covered with more than 50 chocolate recipes.

Avocado chocolate pudding

Pickles and Tea
This no-cook avocado chocolate pudding uses only four ingredients.

By Patricia TanumihardjaThe Asian Grandmothers Cookbook
Makes 4 (1/2 cup) servings

For me, this avocado chocolate pudding is a wonderful update to a traditional Indonesian avocado drink (es alpukat). Thick and creamy, it has the consistency of a true-blue chocolate pudding with the flavors of my childhood. The cocoa powder almost masks the avocado (which I think may be the point). But if you prefer more avocado flavor, use less cocoa powder.  Another variation: add a teaspoon of instant coffee powder. This avocado chocolate pudding is very rich and indulgent and a little will go a long way to satisfying the sweetest of sweet tooths.

2 large ripe Hass avocados, halved and pitted
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup whole milk (and more as needed)
1/3 cup cocoa powder

1. Scoop the avocado flesh from the peel with a spoon and pop into a blender (or a food processor, or a Vitamix). Add the condensed milk, whole milk and cocoa powder and process until completely smooth, scraping down the sides of the jug as needed. Add a little more whole milk if the mixture has trouble coming together. Keep going until you don’t see any more avocado bits, a total of about 2 minutes. Taste and add more cocoa powder or condensed milk if desired, and process until smooth. If the pudding is still lumpy (or if you’re a perfectionist), press it through a fine-mesh strainer.

2. If you can resist, transfer the pudding to a container with a tight lid, cover and chill for 1 hour. When ready to serve, stir it up, spoon into bowls or cups and enjoy! The pudding will keep in the refrigerator for 3 days.

Click here to read the full Stir It Up! blog post

Back to Index

61 of 61

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.