While it may have started off as an app to share dance videos, TikTok has become a goldmine for cooking content. You could likely spend the rest of your life only making recipes you found while scrolling through all the viral sensations like three-ingredient pasa, parmesan-crusted potatoes, and miso noodle soup in a jar.
That’s not to say that all TikTok cooking trends are original. Sometimes they just bring our attention to an amazing recipe that was hiding right under our noses. That’s what happened recently with Ina Garten’s Brownie Pudding, or Baked Chocolate Pudding.
As the name implies, the dessert is a cross between a brownie and a pudding, originally appearing in Ina’s 2008 cookbook “Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics.” She also shared the recipe on her show “The Barefoot Contessa,” where she revealed that the recipe originally comes from Anna Pump, owner of the Hamptons specialty food store Loaves and Fishes, and author of “The Loaves and Fishes Cookbook.” In the show segment, the dessert resembles an underbaked brownie, but is actually so much more than that. According to Ina, it’s baked on the outside with a molten middle and is “so good” she made it to celebrate her 40th wedding anniversary.
Food Network recently reshared the clip of Ina making the pudding on its TikTok account. Now, 17 years later, other social media users are discovering the magic of this hybrid dessert, with dozens of videos popping up of people trying the brownie pudding.
How To Make Ina Garten’s Brownie Pudding Dessert
You’ll recognize many of the ingredients in Ina Garten’s viral brownie pudding as those found in regular brownies. However, the baking technique differs. You begin making the recipe by beating together eggs and sugar for 5 to 10 minutes. Next, add sifted flour and cocoa powder, and seeds scraped from a vanilla bean. Ina also adds a touch of framboise, a raspberry liqueur, though it’s optional. Then, mix in cooled, melted butter. Pour the batter into a 9×12 oval baking dish and add it to a larger baking pan, pouring a small amount of water inside to create a water bath. Bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees F.
“This is powerful,” @savlee93 says in a video reviewing the pudding that has now garnered hundreds of thousands of likes. “Ina Garten has never done me wrong, I need this biblically,” one commenter said under another video of the dessert. A third TikTok calls it the “best creation Ina has given this world.” With reviews like these, we had to try it for ourselves.
We Tried Ina Garten’s Brownie Pudding Recipe
Peyton Beckwith
Allrecipes’ own, Nicole McLaughlin, took on the baked chocolate pudding recipe—and assures us it’s worth the hype.
“I love how using the same ingredients in new ways can create completely different dishes,” she notes, referencing the water bath and the instructions for beating the eggs and sugar. “You don’t typically find these steps in brownie recipes, but that’s what creates the crackly crust and the super delicate texture,” she explains. The inclusion of framboise is also unique, but Nicole decided to leave it out when she recreated the recipe, preferring a “straight chocolate” flavor, sans fruit.
As for her review? Nicole calls the dessert a “12/10.”
“Sooooo good! The top is reminiscent of a chocolate meringue cookie, but as a super-thin layer. The inside is like a lava cake. Perfectly rich and sweet—indulgent for sure, but not overwhelming!”
Nicole concurs with Ina’s recommendation to serve the brownie pudding with ice cream, calling the hot, cold, crisp, and creamy treat a “perfect bite.”
It can’t get much better than that. But then again, how could we ever doubt Ina? Thanks to TikTok, Ina Garten, and Anna Pump, we’ve found our new go-to chocolate dessert.
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