An eggless chocolate pudding that turns out silky, with a rich chocolate flavour.
Combine tapioca flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl, and mix.
Put milk in a pan, and stir in the sugar mix as you bring the milk to a simmer over low heat, stirring as necessary with a whisk. Simmer for 5 minutes or so, until it begins to thicken, stirring as necessary with a wisk. Be sure to regularly scrape the sides and bottom of the pan.
Add chocolate and simmer for another 2 to 4 minutes, whisking as necessary, until the pudding is smooth and thickened.
Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla.
Continue occasional whisking until it's lukewarm. Put into one or more containers, and either seal them or put plastic wrap on the surface of the pudding. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
Depending on taste, you can adjust the firmness between almost liquid and very firm. Simply add more thickener, you can also simmer it a little longer. In my household, there's a difference of opinion of proper pudding firmness. With this recipe I can do the morally correct firm chocolate pudding, or I can adjust it down to the morally suspect softness that my significant other prefers.
I originally used cornstarch, but I prefer the tapioca. Tapioca flour thickens faster than cornstarch, and has a nicer effect on the flavor. If you don't have tapioca flour, simply substitute cornstarch or some other thickener.
I started with this recipe from smitten kitchen. It's worth taking a look at, really nice pictures with descriptions of the process.