Hunger Games Chocolate Cherry Custard

First: I’m dreadfully sorry about last week. Unfortunately I was unable to publish a new recipe due to some pretty wicked gastrointestinal issues. On a related note, who the actual fuck washes their dishes with straight bleach? I ask you.

I have a  special treat for you this week: Chocolate custard dotted with cherries from the Hunger Games. Though only mentioned in passing, this dessert sounded so good it demanded to be made. That, and do you have any idea how much lamb costs?! I was not about to make the lamb-and-plum stew. We’ll talk about that when I get a raise or three. Good?  Good.

As of now I’m making two batches of each recipe weekly; one for the blog and house, and one for a friend to take to work. Now that’s what I call job security! Stay tuned at the end of the post for the actual test message conversation about just how well the custard was received.

Ready? Let’s go.

Gamers, grab your mats:

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon maraschino cherry juice
• maraschino cherries, a lot
• Dutch-process cocoa powder or powdered sugar for garnish

Recipe adapted from Food.com.

Look, all of the ingredients!

Lightly grease a 1 quart baking dish with a bit of butter. If you’re fancy enough to own ramekins, use four. You know by now I’m not that fancy.

Preheat oven to 325° F. Fill a 9×13″ baking pan with 1 inch of water and put it in the oven.

Beat eggs lightly. Stir in your sugar, salt, and cocoa powder. I used standard cocoa powder for this part.

This is kinda messy to do, actually.

Heat milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until very hot, but not boiling. Remove from heat; slowly add milk to egg mixture, stirring constantly. Like, add this in 10 batches. This will keep your eggs from turning into strange grainy chocolate scrambled eggs. Ew.

Whee, frothy!

Stir in vanilla and cherry juice.

We’ll call the cherry juice the secret ingredient, yeah?

OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED: Line the bottom of your quart dish with drained, halved maraschino cherries.

Pour custard mixture into quart dish or ramekins; carefully place in baking pan with hot water.

Guess which world genius actually managed not to splash water everywhere?!

Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Texture will firm up more as it cools. I’d recommend refrigerating about 3 hours.

For overachievers, cut out a Mockingjay stencil and firmly press into top of chilled custard. Surely you know where I’m going with this.

Hm. Bit big. Maybe this is why it didn’t work out too well?

Lightly sift Dutch-process cocoa powder or powdered sugar over stencil.

I’m sure you already know what happened.

Gently remove stencil from custard. Naturally, at some point I managed to screw this up and a lot of cocoa powder got under the stencil. After a few minutes of glaring at chocolate I finally gave up and just sifted cocoa powder all over the top of the thing. Augh.

Drain and halve a dozen or so maraschino cherries and arrange them on top of the cocoa powder. If you didn’t use a stencil or messed up your stencil, add a bit of contrasting powdered sugar or cocoa powder to the center for a moderately redeeming effect. I suck.

And just for shits and giggles I added a bit of shaved chocolate, too.

You’re done! Just try not to stab anyone with a spoon when the try to share.

A suitable last meal before the Games? I think so!

Custard is another one of those strange wonky things I’ve never made before so I was a bit apprehensive about sending it out into the world.

According to our friend Keith this is how well it was received in his office:

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Keith:

Your custard caused an all male 3 way spoon fest… I’m gonna let that sink in before I explain

Leisel:

Oh Jesus…

Keith:

So Torian came over for another spoonful. I said I haven’t tried it yet. So I was required to get a spoonful and ‘toast’ our spoons. At which point says “Oh let me get in on this”. As the three spoons touched Brad speaks up “I just watched my first all male threesome spooning.”

Leisel:

Oh. My. God. That good?

Keith:

It’s fucking great. Your recipe is good enough to inspire team building and open male on male on male spoon sharing.

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Well then. I’ll just let you be the judge. Don’t forget, only 14 days left to enter my Star Wars Death Star giveaway! Have you submitted your entries yet? I can confirm as of yesterday’s breakfast that this is only the most perfect breakfast gadget out there. Get in on it now!

Coming Up Next: Any Twisted Metal fans out there? I’m making cotton candy Sweet Tooth fudge! Yes, you should probably be concerned.

Cheers,

Leisel

Remember, cooking IRL doesn’t have to be a Feat of Strength!

Entry for #WeeklyChallenge for #FoodBloggers

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