Chocolate tapioca pudding

This chocolate tapioca pudding is a wonderfully refreshing dessert for warm days. One of its greatest advantages is that it can be made a day in advance, as it tastes even better well chilled and served with fresh strawberries. If you don’t have time to soak the tapioca pearls beforehand, simply extend the cooking time to about 20 minutes.

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients for the chocolate tapioca pudding:

• 400 ml coconut milk (1 tin)
• 400 ml milk
• 80 ml (⅓ cup) small tapioca pearls
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or more, to taste)
• about 50 g dark chocolate, broken into pieces (or more, to taste)
• fresh strawberries, sliced, for serving

Place the tapioca pearls into a saucepan. Pour over the coconut milk and milk, then leave to soak for 1 hour.

After soaking, stir the mixture and bring it to the boil. Cook over a medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Continue cooking until the tapioca pearls are soft and translucent and the pudding has reached your preferred consistency, about 10 minutes. Remember that it will thicken further as it cools. Just before the end of cooking, stir in the dark chocolate until completely melted. Add more chocolate if you prefer a richer flavour. Leave to cool, then spoon into serving glasses or bowls.

Refrigerate until chilled. Serve with sliced fresh strawberries.

Enjoy!