A watercolour of a dark glossy set chocolate pudding in a small bowl with a pale coconut swirl on top
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from Blancmange and the cornflour-set milk puddings of European cooking, thickened with starch rather than with egg or gelatine

Coconut and cocoa pudding

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 18 months, set by Cornflour.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
3
Burners
1
Pans
1
Water
0.1 L
Active
8 min
Total
45 min

Ingredients

A proper set chocolate pudding from three cupboard things and no fridge.

Everything dry goes in the pan together, before any liquid. Cocoa, sugar, cornflour and salt whisked dry, then the coconut milk added a little at a time. Cornflour and cocoa both lump the instant they meet liquid in a mass, and mixing them dry first is the whole technique.

  1. Dry ingredients in the cold pan, mixed with a fork until uniform.
  2. Coconut milk in a splash at a time, stirring to a smooth paste before adding more. Once it is loose, the rest can go in at once.
  3. Medium heat, stirring constantly. It will thicken suddenly at around 80 degrees, going from liquid to pudding in about twenty seconds.
  4. Two minutes more after it thickens. Cornflour tastes raw and chalky until it is properly cooked out, and this is the step people cut short.
  5. Into bowls. It sets as it cools, thirty minutes at ambient.

A skin forms on top. If you object, press a piece of anything flat onto the surface while it cools. The skin is the best part.

Serves 3.

What this was adapted from

Blancmange and the cornflour-set milk puddings of European cooking, thickened with starch rather than with egg or gelatine

  • dairy milk → tinned coconut milk

    The set comes from cornflour rather than from anything dairy, so coconut milk behaves the same way and brings fat the original needed cream for. It also makes it a different and arguably better pudding: coconut and cocoa are a natural pair.

  • an egg custard base → cornflour alone

    Egg gives a softer, richer set and is not available without a fridge. Cornflour sets firmer and cleaner, which is why blancmange exists at all.