Baked Sunday Mornings: Mocha Fudgesicles

This week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe is Vanilla Bean Affogatos -- a recipe I made two weeks ago. So today I'm going rogue with the recipe for "Mocha Fudgesicles" from Baked: New Frontiers. I chose this recipe because I was a huge fan of Jell-O pudding pops growing up and the recipe headnote explains that these fudgsicles are essentially chocolate pudding pops. You had me at "pudding"!

This is a very easy recipe. You make mocha pudding by bringing a mixture of sugar, cocoa powder, instant espresso powder, flour, cornstarch, egg, cream, and milk to a boil; stir while it boils for two minutes; and pour it over a tablespoon of butter. You whisk the pudding to release heat and let it cool slightly before pouring it into popsicle molds and freezing the pops until hard.

I used a Zoku classic popsicle mold and I had enough pudding to make six popsicles with a substantial amount left over; I poured it into a silicone ice cube tray and used toothpicks as handles to make another six mini-pops. I liked the fudgesicles a lot. I thought the texture was best when they were allowed to sit at room temperature for a few minutes. When eaten straight out of the freezer, they were a little icy. After sitting at room temperature for a while, they had the distinctive creaminess of a pudding pop. As for the flavor, it was mostly coffee with just a little chocolate. I actually thought they could have been a little sweeter -- but I like my coffee to taste like Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream. I definitely give this recipe thumbs up -- these fudgesicles provided a delicious return on very little effort.

Recipe: "Mocha Fudgesicles" from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.