My Budget Version of Cooking Light’s Rich Chocolate Pudding Pie

I was so surprised to see that Cooking Light Magazine’s Rich Chocolate Pudding Pie was one of the only non-frozen treats in the June issue but considering the rest of the world is supposedly quite hot, it makes sense. We are finally going to get a warm day here on the east coast, I can hardly believe it. Last week when I made this we were still getting frost warnings!

So what do you do when you are on a tight budget, the cupboards are almost empty and you really do not want to spend money on additional ingredients? You improvise. At least I do. Sometimes I am successful. Sometimes not.

For the original recipe, go here. To make the crust I got out the last of my Oreo crumbs for baking and added 3 oz of melted chocolate chips and 1 tbsp of canola oil. You were supposed to use bittersweet chocolate but I did not have very much left.

You stir together and put on the bottom of a pie plate.

I did not have quite enough to cover the bottom and it kept sticking to my hands so I used icing sugar on them and did my best to spread around the pie plate. I froze this weird-looking crust for 15 minutes as I made the filling.

I combined 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1/4 cup cocoa, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 egg yolks and half of 1 3/4 cup of skim milk with a little bit of that soy coffee creamer to make it more like the consistency of 1% milk, which is what the recipe calls for. You are supposed to stir until smooth and then add the remaining milk. Which I totally forgot to do. My life is a mess lately and I have been screwing up everything!

After the pudding comes together I had to add 4 oz of finely chopped bittersweet chocolate but I did not have enough. I weighed out what chocolate I did have left. This proved to be a big mistake.

I cooked the pudding mixture over medium heat until it got all thick and bubbly and then realized, hey, there is not enough milk in there! I quickly added the rest of the milk. It took a while to get nice and thick the way it is supposed to but it did, thank goodness!

I added the 4 oz of chocolate, stirring together to help the chocolate melt.

You are supposed to add 1 tbsp of white rum which I did but it was very strong. Next time I will add Baileys or Frangelico which are more winter flavours but seriously, the rum was so strong!

Chocolate chips are designed to withstand heat and you could see them throughout the pie at first but thankfully they eventually mostly melted and created a rich and thick chocolate pie filling.

This version of the recipe was unbelievably sweet! And the cookie crumb crust was a bit stale. The rum flavour overpowered everything.

No, this is not a recipe review. I butchered this recipe to help create a summer treat for the week that was not filled with saturated fat that also prevented me from making a special trip to the grocery store. The longer I stay away, the more money I save.

It is lighter than most desserts but 5.9 g of saturated fat per serving is still pretty high. If you do attempt to make this no-bake pie, make sure to use bittersweet chocolate. It was quite clear to both me and Reg this was a great dessert and would have been so much better if we did not end up with a  huge sugar rush. This dessert hurt his teeth it was so sweet! I did not know that was possible. Also, if you do not like rum, make sure to use a liquor you do like. It will be very prevalent in each bite. Or skip the alcohol altogether and add an extract you love like orange or raspberry.

Still, I enjoyed it. A nice treat that did not cost me an additional dime to make which right now, helps a lot. They always say that when you bake you have to follow all the rules and it just isn’t true. I play with recipes all the time and yes, it is a risk but following the “rules” all the time gets kind of dull. Make it your own.