Happy birthday to all the Leap Year babies today! I couldn’t find any specific Leap Day food, so I asked my husband what he wanted for dinner. But since I had leftover meat from a roast chicken and also made some homemade stock, he was urged to choose from what I had. He decided he wanted old-fashioned comfort food and settled on creamed chicken with mushrooms and peas on buttermilk biscuits. An old-fashioned meal calls for an old-fashioned dessert. “Tapioca pudding,” he said. “How about if I jazz it up, just a little,” I asked.
One peek into the refrigerator and I knew it would be chocolate tapioca pudding, especially since we happened to have Oberweis Dairy chocolate milk. Oberweis products are still packaged in glass bottles and still delivered right to your door. See? Old-fashioned dessert in more ways than one. And Nielsen-Massey vanilla is the best.
The ingredients are so simple. There is no added sugar since the chocolate milk already has some. We have always preferred our tapioca with no topping of any kind, but a dollop of whipped cream can be added if desired. We also like it warm or cold. Either way, it’s like eating spoonfuls of childhood memories. We both loved it as kids and still do. But now we like chocolate too. See what you think!
- 3 Tablespoons quick-cooking Tapioca
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2-3/4 cups good quality chocolate-flavored milk
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a 2-quart saucepan, mix all ingredients except vanilla; let stand for 5 minutes.
- Over medium-high heat, bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat and stir in vanilla; let stand for 20 minutes, then stir.
- Spoon pudding into individual dessert dishes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, or pudding can be eaten warm, if desired. Serves 4-6.
LOL ! I made this last week when I found a box of quick cook tapioca in my pantry. I used Fairlife chocolate milk instead of Oberweis. I love Fairlife milk–the skim milk has a nice thick feel in your mouth and has more protein in it. I also used vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract.
I’ve never used Fairlife. I’ll have to give it a try!
I am going to go search my pantry for that box of instant tapioca; I know it is in there somewhere. The fact that you get milk delivered to your door brought me way back to my childhood. We had the milkman and the egg lady and then came the vegetable man. He came around in a converted bus. Those were the days.
I will have to add some chocolate syrup to regular milk.
That will work. Add a big squirt of syrup!
I made this today as I love chocolate tapioca pudding! It tuned out Great I did add a little more chocolate chips and about 1/3 cup chocolate syrup to make it little darker chocolate, I will be making this often!
Sounds like great additions! I might try that too!
Is there anything else I could use in place of the quick cooking tapioca?
I don’t know; I’ve never tried anything else because then it wouldn’t be tapioca pudding anymore!