Dairy Free Chocolate Pudding

Today's potential failure is a deliciously sweet dessert: coconut chocolate pudding, or as I like to call it, coco-cocoa pudding. *ba-dum-tsshhh* Homophones, anyone? No? Not funny? Oh well...
You can find the recipe here.

One of the best parts of this recipe is the fact that it is completely milk-free. Very handy if one of your guests has a milk allergy, like my cooking buddy/teacher and boyfriend =3
When he was over for Christmas we made this as a dessert, and good lord was it good. We didn't add the curry spices (I'm totally a hardcore choc fan), and it worked perfectly without.

As you can see, this recipe requires something called arrowroot. Here in the Netherlands, that's a pretty rare ingredient, and I was lucky to have bought it on a trip in England last year. Hurray for Waitrose! (they have the cutest series of baking stuff, and I bought the complete set of baking powder, baking soda, arrowroot and cream of tartar while I only knew what to do with the baking powder and soda, initially) Try to get this, but if it's to difficult to find, try it with some other kind of starch, like potato.

Okay, so for the Christmas desert we made twice the prescribed batch because there were quite a few of us (no there weren't, but my dad counts for two if not three), errr, more than four in any case. It was absolutely delicious! Trust me on this one. Because there's actual chocolate in it, it has a really intense chocolate flavour. It also has that rich consistency that you associate with melted chocolate and that I find to be so appropriate for choc desserts. If you want to, you can play around with the consistency, which is exactly what I/we did.

So, the original recipe has a lot of arrowroot in it. When I say a lot, I mean a LOT. For about half a litre of pudding (and this is a rough estimate) according to the recipe you have to add 1/4 cup of arrowroot, equaling 60 ml. When my boyfriend tried out this recipe (and this was a long time before Christmas) he followed the recipe, and ended up with something less than ideal-looking. With its brown shade and all, it kinda looked like something else entirely.. I kid you not.

Not very appetizing, now is it?

Clearly, something had to be done in order to get a more appetizing result. We halved the amount of arrowroot, so instead of half a cup for twice the amount, we just stuck to 1/4 cup. That batch came out a lot better, really.  Suitable for Christmas too, which is always a plus. Still, we agreed there was a bit too much arrowroot in it. It was a bit, uh, too stiff?

Anyway, I tried it again, considering I had opened a can of coconut milk to make some satay, and had only used half of it. Half a can doesn't give you much choc pudding, so naturally, a second can had to be opened. Aww yeah. Mooaar deliciousness. Six reasonably-sized portions made from 600 ml of coconut milk (sounds like small portions, doesn't it? Yeah I admit, they are small, but heck, it's so incredibly rich that small portions are very reasonable). Two days of fabulous pudding. It doesn't get much better.

The Problem: I don't know how much thickener to add. There's too much thickener in the original recipe.

The solution: Add less thickener (obviously). The question is, how much less? That's the adventure, isn't it?
Okay, so in my final batch, the recipe and a half, I added a total of 15 ml arrowroot, also known as a tablespoon. It was very liquidish in while cooking (that's an adjective because I just made it so), and I feared I'd end up with some sluggish chocolate milk, but it turned out well in the end.

Pretty milky, don't you think?

The Problem: I can't find arrowroot for the life of me! What do I do?

The Solution: Although I haven't tested it yet, I think your best bet is potato starch. Corn starch is also possible, which has been tried and approved. The whole point of using arrowroot is, I think, that arrowroot is transparent when used, gives your dish a nice gloss, and is taste-neutral. Cornstarch, on the other hand, always turns your sauce or pudding opaque, and adds a bit of texture, when added in large quantities. In my experiences, potato starch is also translucent, also a bit glossy, but I don't know about taste. I really don't use it that often (because I can never find the box, which is small, and my cupboard is big 'n messy).

Do you see the gloss? Ooh, you so glossy!

Have you ever made your own pudding? What are your experiences with thickeners in desserts? Leave it in the comments.

Happy failing!