Cacao Pudding

This is more of a pudding than a cake but I absolutely love this recipe, its very rich and like nothing I've ever tasted before. It's main ingredient is cacao, which is very simply ground up cocoa beans and nothing else.

This simple recipe was given to me by a friend, the taste of the cacao is quite intense and very different from chocolate because of it being in it's simplest form. You can get cacao from most health food shops, it tends to come in two forms, ground up or in nibs. For this recipe use the ground up stuff, and if you like quite bitter tastes the nibs are good to munch on! But it can be rather an acquired taste.



There are two tree ingredients in this one, Cacao and Coconut. The picture above shows the cocoa pod growing directly from the trunk (Photo taken by Fev August 2003). The Agave Syrup used in this recipe is a natural sweetener that is mainly used in raw food cooking or as a substitute for honey. It comes from the Agave plant which is commercially produced in Mexico.

Ingredients

250g ground cacao
1 tin of coconut milk
half a bar of coconut cream
4-5 tbsp agave syrup
some chopped nuts and dried fruit (optional)

Directions

• Put the coconut milk in a pan and heat gently, add about half a bar of coconut cream to this and stir until its melted.

• Add the ground cacao and stir until its all mixed in.

• Take it off the heat and add the agave syrup, this can be done to taste if you prefer it sweeter add more!
  

• Add your favorite chopped nuts and fruit, goji berries go really well in it, but you can just use anything you find in your cupboard really.
  

• Pour into small tubs and place in the fridge, it is also nice to thinly slice up some banana and us it as a topping.
  

• After a couple of hours the mixture will set, and its ready to eat, enjoy.
  

Kate's Tip: The agave syrup is quite expensive and a bit of a luxury item and can be replaced with just sugar or any type of alternative sweetener desired.