Dairy Free Chocolate Custard {Clean Eating}

All my kids love custard and once we'd got the dairy free version of a regular custard perfected, it was time to move onto a chocolate version. And oh boy, this is good! Poured generously over a simple banana or slathered on top of a Clean eating brownie, this is one recipe you're gonna want to keep up your sleeve :)

Dairy Free Chocolate Custard

This chocolate custard is made using Real food ingredients, most of which you're likely to have in your pantry already. It takes no more than 5 minutes to make and the result? A thick, creamy dairy free chocolate custard every bit as good and far far better than any custard you'd buy in a tin. And as you watch the kids tuck in you can feel just a teeny tiny bit smug that they're gobbling down a refined sugar free, pretty wholesome pudding without you spending hours over the cooker. Add a chopped banana into the bowl and all the better.

If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know I like to have some dairy free recipes on hand. There's two reasons for this. We've been trying to eat less dairy for a while, I'm not trying to cut it our completely rather just cut down. And if there's things I can make that can be made with a dairy free equivalent then I like to try them. Sometimes they're amazing like this one and sometimes not so much, in which case we flip back. But I promise you, this is a good one!

Grab the FREE 7 Day Clean Eating Challenge Pack & Take The Kids Diet From Zero To HERO!

Ingredients

This custard is really made from some pretty staple ingredients. It's the sort of thing you can just knock up as and when you fancy it as you've probably got the ingredients already.

Dairy Free Milk

I use almond milk for this custard but any plant based milk will work: Oat milk, coconut milk or soy milk. And of course if your aim isn't to have a dairy free custard then you can use dairy milk. I like using almond milk and always have it in the house.

Cocoa

Good quality cocoa powder is brilliant. It's been a saviour in our Clean eating journey giving us the option to make lots of chocolaty things whilst being able to stay eating Clean. I like to buy a decent cocoa as I think the taste is better and you end up needing to use less.

Arrowroot Powder

Arrowroot is a starch that comes from tropical plants and is used as a thickener, and it's great. I use it often in baking and cooking in place of cornflour. Arrowroot also contains: Magnesium, Calcium, Iron and Potassium, so there's even more reason to be making this chocolate custard!

Recipe Notes for Making Chocolate Custard

There's a few things that'll help you get this chocolate custard perfect:

• This custard thickens fast. It goes from thin to thick in record speed as it heats up so make sure to keep stirring!
• To avoid any lumps, and who likes lumpy custard, make sure to create a good paste out of the arrowroot and cocoa before adding it to the pan. Using cold water, mix the dry ingredients really well, there should be no lumps in the paste at all
• If the custard is too thick, you can add cold milk to the finished custard to thin it out
• The custard will 'set' slightly if you store it in the fridge. It will thin itself as it's reheated

Making Ahead And Storing

The custard we used to buy came in a tin and lasted forever (just about!). I didn't give much of a thought to this before we started this Clean eating journey but it lasted for a very very very long time because it was a) tinned and 2) it contained copious amounts of sugar, enough to preserve it until....rather a long time! These days our food's made of Real food, with no hidden preservatives and so it goes off. Not straight away of course but there's a shelf life and so it wouldn't be honest to say eating Clean takes more planning than before, but I kinda like this. Food does go off. It means it's real.

What I'm trying to say is that while you can't go to the pantry and grab this 6 months after you made it, you can make it a day or two ahead and reheat it (or not!) before you need it.

If you want to make this ahead of time so it's ready to go, I'd recommend making this no more than two days ahead. Make up the whole recipe, let it cool down and then store it in the fridge, covered with food wrap to stop a skin forming.

When you want to reheat this you can simply pour it into a pan and gently reheat it on the stove top, stirring it to stop it burning on the bottom. You can also microwave this for 2-3 minutes stirring half way through to re-heat it.

What To Serve With Chocolate Custard

I've served this with a Clean eating chocolate brownie for a double chocolate hit, but there's loads of things you can serve this with or even just on it's own. It's really yummy!

A chopped banana gives you a chocolaty take on banana custard, a fruit crumble, a salted caramel pudding or scooped up with homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, this choccy custard is versatile and goes well with pretty much any pudding.

More Clean Eating Desserts

• Loads of healthier puddings
• Clean eating creme Brulee
• Clean eating apple crumble
• Coconut milk caramel
• Healthy pumpkin brownies

How To Make Dairy Free Chocolate Custard

Ingredients

• 1½ Cups Almond milk Unsweetened
• 2 tbsp Maple syrup
• 2 Eggs
• 2 heaped tbsp Cocoa powder
• 2½  tbsp Arrowroot Powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste Or extract

Instructions

• Whisk together eggs, vanilla & maple syrup
• Combine the Arrowroot powder and cocoa with two tablespoons of cold water to form a smooth paste
• In a large saucepan. Combine egg mix, arrowroot mix & almond milk
• Whisk continuously to ensure no lumps are lurking!
• Heat in a saucepan on low to medium heat until the mixture starts to simmer. Thickening happens in seconds so keep stirring
• Simmer for two minutes. Stir constantly to prevent lumps forming as custard thickens

Dairy Free Chocolate Custard Recipe