Banana Chocolate Coconut Pudding Recipe — Almost No Sugar!

Recently I have been trying to reduce the amount of sugar that we eat in our family. This is mainly for health reasons — the more I read about sugar, the more alarmed I get. Recently, there was an article in the New York Times Magazine that pretty much summed up my concerns with its title: Is Sugar Toxic?

Unfortunately, desserts are one of my favorite things to make! I love to bake, and I love making food look pretty, and I love anything with fruit… and I know lots of people who love anything with chocolate, and I like to make people happy, so there you have it — I cook desserts a lot!

Last week I stumbled upon a book called Sugar-Free Toddlers. It has a bunch of recipes that have absolutely no sugar and are actually great for non-toddlers, too! I adapted one recipe from the book last night. One of the ways I modified it was by adding chocolate chips. Chocolate chips have sugar but I felt that since I wasn’t adding a large amount, and since dark chocolate has antioxidants, it was OK. 😉

Here it is:

Banana Chocolate Coconut Pudding Recipe (*almost* sugar-free)

3 eggs

2 bananas, cut into pieces

1 1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup frozen apple juice concentrate (no sugar added)

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut

1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 ounce dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In blender, blend eggs and bananas on medium until smooth. Add milk, frozen apple juice concentrate, baking powder, flour, and coconut and blend again until smooth. Add chocolate chips and blend briefly (so chips have been broken into smaller pieces but not pulverized).

Pour into six custard cups. Place cups in a shallow pan. Pour boiling water into the pan to approximately 1-inch depth. Bake for 45 minutes, until the custard has set.

Remove from oven and cool. Once cool, put cups in refrigerator for a few hours until cold. Whip cream and dollop or pipe on top of the pudding. Garnish with grated dark chocolate. Enjoy!