Movie food: Chocolate pudding

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I’m afraid cute cooking rats pale in comparison these days to Harry Potter. My daughters also took a dim view of cooking vegetable stew, preferring instead to make pudding. Why pudding? Because Luna Lovegood, their new favorite J.K. Rowling character, adores pudding. As the girls broke Valrhona bittersweet chocolate into the top of a double boiler (which they’d pretended to heat with their wands), and later, as we ate spoonfuls of the chocolate pudding topped with freshly whipped cream and a sprig of chocolate mint from Maggie’s Farm, I could see their point.

Luna’s Chocolate Pudding: Bring 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 cups of milk to just below boiling in a heavy saucepan. Melt 6 ounces of Valrhrona bittersweet chocolate and 2 tablespoons of butter in the top of a double boiler. Off heat, whisk 1/2 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons cornstarch and 1 tablespoon vanilla into half of the milk mixture, then add the melted chocolate and the rest of the milk. Pour into 6 teacups and chill for an hour. Top with fresh whipped cream and, if you like, grated chocolate.

If you have any extra, it makes a nice snack. Especially if you’re halfway through Rowling’s seventh book and won’t be cooking anything until you’re finished.

-- Amy Scattergood