It's not fondue, but...

I've always said I'll try anything once. So this evening, with Swissy Pie egging me on over the phone, I gave the recipe for raw chocolate pudding a whirl - literally. The jujubes I'd planned to use turned out to have gone bad, so I skipped that ingredient, as well as the optional nut butter.

Making the recipe took little more than five minutes; blending was the most time-consuming part. In the end I had a couple of cups of thick, glossy stuff.

Was it disgusting? No, the results definitely exceeded my expectations, and over the course of a few hours, I confess I ate the whole batch. (Not a great idea, incidentally, because of the high fiber content.) Still, I have no regrets about making it.

But did it taste like chocolate pudding? Er... Kind of. The cocoa conjured up vague intimations of dark chocolate, and the pudding had a nice silky texture. But I couldn't quite ignore the figgy overtones, and the pudding lacked the depth and richness of a true chocolate pudding.

Including nut butter probably would have helped with the richness, but I really doubt that dates would've neutralized the sour-sweet flavor of the figs. I may experiment with using raisins, instead, to see if that gives a more muted flavor. If not, no problem - grapes go quite well with chocolate, in any case.

So would I recommend this to a friend? Sure, under certain conditions. It's a good substitute for someone who's lactose intolerant, or who loves chocolate covered figs. It's great for using up dried fruit in a novel way. It's a perfect dessert for entertaining friends who are raw vegans. And it would be fun as part of a creative meal constructed in the spirit of Ferran Adria or Wylie Dufresne.

But for anyone looking for a big bowl of comfort food, my advice is to look elsewhere.