Silken chocolate tofu pie

July 17, 2011 at 3:33 pm (Alma's faves, B_minus (2.5 stars), Derek's faves, Dessert, Mom’s recipes, Pies and custards, Pudding, Silken tofu, Tofu)

One of the desserts I remember best form childhood is silken chocolate tofu pie.  I know, it doesn’t sound that great, but it was creamy and rich and chocolately and sweet…  I loved it.  My mom used to bake it in a graham cracker crust which made it even better.   But I also loved it uncooked right out of the food processor.  When I lived in the co-op I used to make the pudding with lemon juice or grapefruit juice for a little extra bite.  I liked the stark contrast between the sweet pudding and the sour juice.  Other co-op denizens didn’t like the combination of citrus and chocolate and soy as much as I did.  I didn’t mind though, because that way there was more for me.  I tried making the pudding for Derek long ago, but he was disturbed by the strong underlying soy flavor, so I stopped making it.  But last month I had a few boxes of silken tofu lying around that needed to get used up, and so I decided to try making tofu chocolate pudding again.

Here’s the recipe I dug up.  I’m not sure if it’s my mom’s version or something that’s been tweaked.  There’s certainly a lot of sugar!  I’m surprised the recipe doesn’t call for a pinch of salt?

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs. tofu
• 3 Tbs. oil
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1/2 tsp. soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Instructions: Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth and creamy. Pour into individual serving dishes or baked pie shell.  Chill until firm and serve.

My notes:

This recipe doesn’t actually specify what kind of tofu should be used, but I used my soft silken tofu. I used olive oil for the oil.

I can no longer remember exactly what went wrong when I went to make this, but I remember that I screwed something up.  I didn’t have enough tofu or I added too much tofu or something.  And then I had to improvise.  I also tried blooming the cocoa in a bit of hot water, since it’s supposed to bring the flavor out better, and I figured it would taste less powdery that way.  (When you cook it the powderiness of the cocoa disappears but if you don’t cook it it’s definitely noticeable.)  I think blooming the cocoa was a good idea but after tasting the pudding I decided that it was a) way too sweet and b) way too thin.  (I think I was short one block of tofu, or maybe the soft silken tofu has too much water in it. Adding water with the cocoa certainly didn’t help.)   To try to thicken it up I think I ended up adding more cocoa powder and some melted unsweetened scharffenberger chocolate.  It still tasted too sweet and the tofu flavor was unmistakable, but the flavor was much more chocolatey and the texture was creamier.  The pudding was still quite thin, though, so I decided to bake it to try to thicken it up.  I made a “graham cracker” crust using crushed hobnobs and melted butter (but no sugar).  I baked it until it looked firm, but I didn’t have time to let it cool all the way and when we cut into it, it basically turned back to liquid, and the crust didn’t really hold together either.  But the chocolate pudding with buttery hobnob crumbs was delicious.  Derek, in particular, was in love.

We put the rest of the pie in the fridge overnight and the next day we could slice it into proper slices, and it was still delicious.  I later baked up the rest of the pudding without a crust, but Derek didn’t like it nearly as much.  He complained that it tasted too soy-y.  I guess somehow the butter hobnob crumbs helped masked the soy flavors.

So, in summary, I screwed up just about everything that I could screw up, but it still came out well, but unfortunately I don’t actually remember how much of everything I put in so I won’t be able to replicate the recipe in the future!

Mexican tofu chocolate pudding

I recently tried Mark Bittman’s recipe for Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding. I made half a recipe using a 100g bar of 90% Lindt chocolate and half a pound of regular cotton (NOT silken) tofu. I add the chocolate to the hot sugar syrup to melt it, and then added the tofu and blended it in the pot with my stick blender. The texture was too gritty. I had to thin it down with some almond milk. Alma loved it. I thought it turned out reasonably well, but it was too sweet. Next time I’d either try 99% chocolate or cut down on the sugar. Maybe with 90% chocolate for half a recipe I’d use 1/4 cup of sugar rather than 3/8 cup of sugar.

Here’s the full recipe:

• ¾ cup sugar (cut this down a lot, depending on what kind of chocolate you use!)
• ¾ cup water
• 8 ounces high-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted
• 1 pound silken tofu
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon chili powder, or more to taste
• pinch of salt

Maybe next time try adding 1/2 teaspoon of espresso powder or using coffee instead of water to make the sugar syrup? One commenter recommends using unsweetened chocolate plus 0.45 ounces of sugar per ounce of unsweetened chocolate. Many commenters say to cut down the sugar.

 

1. In a 2- to 3-quart pot, combine the sugar with the water; bring to a boil and cook until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly.
2. Add the chocolate and let it melt. When it is melted, add the tofu, vanilla, cinnamon, chili powder, and a pinch of salt. Use a stick blender to blend it well. Divide among 4 to 6 ramekins and chill for at least 30 minutes. If you like, garnish with chocolate shavings before serving.