It has been so hot lately and I had such a craving for a frozen treat. I took a look at some of the novelty ice cream treats at the store, but couldn’t find anything that met my criteria: all natural, chocolate, and the appropriate serving size. Something under 150 calories. Not to be found. It was time to make my own.
While I was browsing at the store, I came across pudding pops. Remember those? As a child of the 80’s, I can’t help but not forget them. Jell-O no longer makes them, but Kemps does. I remember Bill Cosby in the commercials and getting them for dessert as part of the kids’ menu at Perkins. (One of my favorite Saturday Night Live Skits of all time features Kenan Thompson as Bill Cosby talking about the Jell-O pudding pops. You can see it here at Funny or Die.) Ah, good times, good times….
Anyways, the pudding pops made by Kemps had a laundry list of questionable ingredients (Seriously???? That many ingredients? Sheesh!), and so I thought, why not make them from scratch? I don’t mean mixing-up-a-box-of-Jell-O-pudding scratch, I mean making-pudding-on-the-stovetop-with-real-ingredients scratch. We’re talking six ingredients: cocoa, sugar, milk, cornstarch, salt and vanilla. Real ingredients, simple, delicious. Making them from scratch means I can control the amount of sugar too. I used a basic recipe for chocolate pudding from Food.com and cut the sugar back. My popsicle mold makes eight 4-ounce pops, I calculated that each pop has only 65 calories and 9 grams of sugar. Yes! The perfect cold treat for someone watching her weight.
Homemade Chocolate Pudding Pops
Low-FODMAP, Gluten-Free
makes 8 pops
Ingredients
1/4 cup (or up to 1/3 cup) pure cane sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups lactose-free milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions
- In a large saucepan, combine the first four ingredients. Slowly stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
- Carefully pour into popsicle molds and freeze. This makes enough for 8 4-oz. pops.
I was searching for a pudding pop recipe and came across your recipe. We made them last night and tasted them this morning. They are fantastic! I am glad to see such a simple recipe list (usual items people have on hand)and happy it doesn't use eggs. I look forward to sharing this recipe and making it many more times. Thanks!
Great! Glad you like it! 🙂
I am probably asking a dumb question but is pure sugar cane the same as granulated sugar? And if not can you use granulated sugar Thanks Brandy
Yes, cane sugar is granulated sugar.