A question about a recipe: Chocolate Pudding

Suzanne is a trusted source on General Cooking.

added about 2 years ago

I have found corn starch to be very sensitive. If you cook too long it doesn't thicken. Could you have had it on the heat too long?

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hardlikearmour is a trusted home cook.

added about 2 years ago

The technique used for that pudding doesn't lend itself to cornstarch. Tapioca starch has the ability to thicken quickly at a relatively low temperature, cornstarch does not.

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Mrs. Larkin is a trusted source on Baking.

added about 2 years ago

As far as I know, you need 2x as much tapioca flour as corn starch to thicken. So maybe it wasn't hot enough. Probably would have thickened nicely on the stove top.

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Cynthia is a trusted source on Bread/Baking.

added about 2 years ago

Heat and cornstarch are indeed your problems. It gelatinizes at 185 degrees, but must be cooked to a boil over direct heat (duh, obviously) to remove the starchy flavor. I think this pudding is intended to give you a lovely dessert more quickly and with less fuss.

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Thanks for you help! I'll try this again (without substitutions!). But all in all this experience turned out well...I was able to make ic cream with my "mistake" batch. :)

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Thanks for your help! I'll try this again (without substitutions!). But all in all this experience turned out well...I was able to make ice cream with my "mistake" batch. :)

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Cynthia is a trusted source on Bread/Baking.

added about 2 years ago

It's all a science experiment!

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Amanda is a co-founder of Food52.

added about 2 years ago

Thanks for all of the helpful answers -- I sent an email to Alex Talbott, one of the authors of the recipe, to ask him if he had any thoughts. Will let you know!

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the reason we use tapioca starch in our blender puddings is that it hydrates and gelantinizes at 70C while cornstarch does the same at 90+C. so in the case above the cornstarch would not be doing anything the thickening would be coming from the cooked egg yolk and the chocolate, enough to make the mixture thick for ice cream but not for pudding.

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Mrs. Larkin is a trusted source on Baking.

added about 2 years ago

Ah, so making a blender pudding like this one would only work if you're using tapioca flour, since the mixture never gets super hot like in a traditional stove-top pudding. I love food science!!

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Are tapioca flour and tapioca starch interchangeable in this recipe? I noticed that the recipe calls for flour, but ideasinfood refers to starch in their answer above.

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Amanda is a co-founder of Food52.

added about 2 years ago

BlueCat -- yes, they're the same.

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