This Chocolate Pudding Has a Secret
Savory notes enhance velvety chocolate pudding.
Moving chocolate pudding from kiddie fare to sophisticated sweet is all about balance, a lesson we long ago learned to appreciate from the perfect pairing of salt and caramel.
But a simple sprinkle of salt didn’t deliver the savory notes needed to balance our chocolate pudding, a dessert practically defined by its cloyingly sweet nature.
For that, we needed something with richer, deeper savory notes. On face value, our solution seems an unlikely one: white miso. Except this fermented soy paste—traditionally used in soups and sauces—sports a naturally sweet side along with umami, allowing it to lean in both directions.
In this recipe, we draw on both facets of miso’s flavor profile to provide a sweet-and-savory base for our pudding. Once dissolved with a bit of warm water, the miso is easily stirred into an otherwise familiar custard of egg yolks, cornstarch, milk and cocoa powder (ideally Dutch-processed for additional depth, though any variety works well in this dessert).
For extra complexity, we also caramelize the sugar and brown the butter to create a rich butterscotch that pairs beautifully with the miso and chocolate. The perfect pudding thanks to perfect balance.
Shaula Clark
Shaula Clark is a Boston-based writer and editor. Her six-year stint as managing editor of Milk Street’s magazine absolutely leveled up her cooking game—though her trusty canine sous chef, Roxie the Schipperke, remains unimpressed unless cheese is involved. In the kitchen, she likes to get weird, with experiments yielding both great success (absinthe sorbet) and dismal failure (liquid smoke-infused rice paper “bacon”). Thanks to a terrifyingly productive tomato garden, Milk Street’s salmorejo—a luscious Andalusian tomato soup—has become a particular favorite recipe. She is, for the record, also staunchly pro-ketchup. Disagreements over her stance on condiments may be sent to .
