So, the other night, I decided it had been way too long since I made dinner from scratch. (Because no, grilling a veggie burger on the George Foreman does not count as dinner from scratch.) I flipped through some old issues of Vegetarian Times, realizing I had never actually made a recipe from the year-long subscription of stored up magazines I had—I’d only looked at the pictures and thought, hmm, that sounds good, but what frozen dinner am I going to have tonight?
Well, that changed when I came upon a recipe for Banana and Black Bean Empanadas, which were wonderfully…wonderful.
But I needed to follow it up with a dessert as awesome as the meal itself, and so, I followed VT’s recipe for Mayan Spiced Chocolate Pudding.
The recipe is for a vegan pudding, but since I’m not a vegan, I used regular chocolate in place of the vegan bar. I also couldn’t find light coconut milk, so I threw caution to the wind and used the full-fat variety—which of course resulted in rich, chocolatey goodness that I will certainly be making again soon.
1 13.5-oz. can light coconut milk, divided
1/4 c. cornstarch
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. chili powder, plus more for garnish
1/8 tsp. salt
1 3-oz. bar vegan dark chocolate, chopped
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Whisk together 1/4 c. coconut milk and cornstarch in small bowl. Set aside.
Combine remaining coconut milk, sugar, cinnamon, chili powder, and salt
in saucepan, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Whisk 1/4 c. hot mixture into cornstarch mixture to form slurry.
Whisk slurry into hot mixture, and cook 3 minutes, or until thickened, whisking constantly. Remove from heat, and whisk in chocolate and vanilla.
At this stage, you can either refrigerate the mixture in a bowl covered in plastic wrap; make sure you press the plastic wrap directly onto the pudding if you want to avoid a pudding “skin” forming on top. If you’re more impatient and want your pudding ready faster, transfer to metal bowl, and set in larger bowl filled with ice and water. Whisk occasionally to cool. Either way, serve the pudding cold and sprinkled with a pinch of chili powder.
