Raw chocolate pudding

This recipe isn't exactly a seasonal delight, but guess what? Sometimes pregnancy doesn't care what season it is. Sometimes it wants mangos in December or raw chocolate pudding.

This is one of my favorite, incredibly delicious, incredibly simple recipes and because it's raw, it for some reason doesn't feel like it's bad for you. I haven't made it forever but yesterday it sounded like a perfect diversion from the huge numbers of things that need to be finished pre-Christmas.



It's from the book, Raw Food Real World, which is a great raw cookbook if anyone out there is into that sort of thing. I'm not, but I was for a brief stint. Sooooo time consuming. My entire kitchen was covered in sprouting beans and I spent all day thinking about what I would make for dinner. Not a functional lifestyle if you have things to do other than prepare and eat food.



ANYWAY, the recipe. The only thing special you need for this is a cleaver. Or some other heavy sharp knife that will reliably split coconuts. Which is the only complicated part of the process. I'm always afraid I'm going to chop my hand off. But I haven't yet. Also, when I say coconuts I mean the young white coconuts that come wrapped in plastic. NOT the brown ones.


Chocolate Pudding

2 cups young coconut meat (roughly 3 coconuts worth)

3/4 cup coconut water (err on the conservative side with this one. You can always add more if it needs thinning).

scant 1/2 cup maple syrup (maybe less, depending on how sweet you like things. I might use 1/3 cup next time).

1/2 cup unsweetened, high quality cocoa powder

2 tablespoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon sea salt


Quickly, one note on sweetness. The original recipe calls for 1/2 c maple syrup and 1/3 cup agave nectar. (Raw food recipes tend to be over the top on flavor). If I used all of that, I would consider this recipe inedible. I used just the 1/2 cup of maple syrup this time and it's still a little on the sweet side. Perhaps consider trying just a third of cup if you don't like things too sweet.



And now onto the "instructions". Put everything in a blender and puree until smooth. If you have a Vita-Mix, I am jealous of you and your pudding will be like silk. If you have an old Osterizer like I do, some fine chunkiness may remain. Definitely adding a Vita-Mix to the baby registry. Must have it for the making of baby food.

The pudding will be pretty runny to start so I definitely recommend refrigerating for a few hours until it's a little firmer. Then eat by the spoonful out of the jar. Or serve yourself a sensible helping garnished with chopped almonds or berries.

Also, if you happen to be into raw food items, one of the authors of the cookbook has a raw food supply website called One Lucky Duck that's worth checking out.