J.R. Johnson

You may be tired of hearing about chocolate tofu pudding, and honestly, I’m a little sick of making it. But! I didn’t go through another five batches of the stuff not to document the results, so here we go.

In the end, I tested five different versions of this chocolate pudding: caramelized white, orange caramelized white, milk, maple milk, and dark.

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Hang on, you may say, you made five batches and each batch made five pudding cups?

That’s right.

That’s hmm, let me think, a *lot* of freaking pudding!

You aren’t wrong. The good news is that it turns out that this pudding freezes quite well. My initial research discouraged freezing, and it’s true that regular tofu undergoes a fairly dramatic texture change when frozen and then thawed. It’s a great way to make a ground meat substitute, but I wasn’t sure what would happen to the creamy texture of the pudding. Fortunately, the silken tofu had no trouble with the temperature change and after defrosting a few hours in the fridge I couldn’t tell it had been frozen.

My favorite variant changes depending on my mood. The orange white has a really good citrus flavor, but there’s something about the acidity that keeps the tofu taste more front and center. I like it anyway, but Mr. Man liked this one least. He wouldn’t eat it straight from the blender but after two days actually liked it. Surprisingly, after a concerted lobbying for the milk chocolate option, his favorite is the dark chocolate. (Also, caramelized white chocolate straight from the spoon.)

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Chocolate Tofu Pudding: The Recipes*

Ingredients vary slightly but the method is the same for all.

Instructions

• Caramelize any chocolate that may need caramelizing.
• Heat sugar and water or syrup over medium-low heat. Cook until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then stir in any additional liquid, add chocolate and stir until melted and smooth.
• Blend all ingredients together until smooth, scraping down the sides as necessary. Chill for at least 30 minutes, although longer gives a denser texture. Serve straight, or with fresh fruit and whipped cream.
• Serves four. Or two. Or one. You’ll find no judgment here.

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Additional Notes: 

Chocolate, flavor and related characteristics

• the dark chocolate option was much thicker than the other variants, especially after chilling.
• chocolate quality is front and center with all versions of this recipe, but even more so with the white chocolate
• I still want to try mocha, with half syrup and half coffee, but that will have to wait. I’m out of tofu. Again.

Tofu, obviousness of

• firm and extra firm tofu both worked well, no discernible difference in the end result.
• the tofu flavor was more obvious with the lighter chocolate versions, but mellowed after a day or two

Sweetness, excess of

• replacing the simple syrup with maple syrup worked structurally, but wasn’t my favorite. The end result was both more sweet and less maple-flavored than I’d like, and it seemed like waste of good Canadian tree juice. That said, I still want to try it topped with a bit of crumbled bacon.
• cutting back even more on the sugar would be possible, particularly with the already sweetened lighter chocolates.

Melding, which is what I’m calling time spent in the fridge for the pudding to think about what it wants from life

• given two days in the fridge for flavors to develop, the white chocolate versions had very different flavors, and all varieties gained more depth and complexity. 

And that, folks, is all I have to say about this pudding.**

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* Because I scribble notes on scraps of paper and then forget where I put them.

** For now. There’s still mocha to try, and peanut butter, and raspberry basil white, and…

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