Chocolate Pudding Pie Shooters - Easy

I wanted to make a chocolate pudding pie.  I was in the mood for comfort food, and chocolate pudding pie is comforting.  A little boring, but comforting.  Then I remembered how I once made chocolate mousse in fluted champagne glasses because my entire custard cup collection at the time consisted of 2 large-ish and 3 small pyrex cups (I have since gained one more large-ish cup, "stolen" from my Passover collection.  But I digress...).  Everyone thought I was serving them some fancy-schmancy chocolate something-or-other because anything served in a wine glass looks très elegant (which is French for "3 times more fancy-schmancy").

No mixer is needed, unless you count yourself, though you will have to stand there stirring and stirring for all of 3-4 minutes to prevent globs of buerre blanc from burning itself permanently to the bottom of the saucepan.  Which is not a good thing.

To make this dessert more pie-ish, I layered graham cracker crumbs in between layers of pudding.  And to make the name more hip (see kids?  I know your lingo, dawgs!) I call 'em "shooters."

My local Try-N-Save only carries several different brands of dairy graham cracker crumbs, yet only the store brand crackers are parve.  Go figure.  Luckily it's only a few minutes out of my life to squash crackers. 

My shooters are of the parve persuasion because they will be served as part of a meat dinner.  For a dairy version, you can substitute in butter and milk, and reduce the amount of chocolate chips to 1 cup. I haven't tried making this with almond milk, but if you do, try adding almond extract or Amaretto instead of vanilla and let me know how it went.

Chocolate Pudding Pie Shooters
serves 4, plus a little extra for the cook

3 parve graham crackers
1 Tbl. sugar
1 Tbl. margarine, melted
2 Tbl. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups soy milk
1 1/2 cups parve semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
parve whipped topping (optional)

Place graham crackers in a food-grade plastic bag and partially close bag (to allow air to escape but not the crumbs).

Using a rolling pin or can, crush graham crackers into said crumbs.  Or break up the crackers into a food processor and pulse 8-10 times to accomplish the same thing faster, but then you have to take time to hand wash the bowl and blade (if yours is like mine and not dishwasher friendly).  'Sup to you.

Pour crushed crackers into a medium-size bowl and mix in sugar and margarine until they are uniformly clumpy.  Set aside.

In a 2 qt saucepan, mix together the cornstarch and salt.  Whisk in soy milk until smooth.

Set saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture starts to thicken and barely simmer.

Reduce heat to low, then stir in chocolate, stirring constantly until it melts completely.  The chocolate will fight you, clumping a bit, but eventually it will become smooth.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.

Carefully fill fluted champagne glasses about a third up with pudding.

Spoon 2 teaspoons of graham cracker mixture into each glass.  Fill glasses about another third with more pudding.  Top with 2 more teaspoons of graham cracker mixture.

Fill glasses almost to the top with pudding, then lightly sprinkle with more crumbs.

Cover tops of glasses with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.  If desired, just before serving spoon on whipped topping.