Black Sesame Pudding

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Black sesame pudding is creamy, lightly sweet and rich with roasted black sesame seeds. If you love the flavor of black sesame, you will love this pudding! Made with just five ingredients, this is a dessert we often make at home. It's simple and impressive. Enjoy chilled with a bit of whipped cream.

Bowls of black sesame pudding, ready to eat. — *Black sesame pudding, ready to eat ^_^*

Why This Recipe Works

If you haven't tasted Black Sesame Pudding before, you are in for a real treat. This is a super onolicious dessert. It's an elegant but simple (truly the best combo) pudding made from milk and cream and lots of black sesame seeds.

Black Sesame Pudding has a velvety texture but is still light (because it is whipped). And oh man, the roasted flavor of black sesame is so happy tasting.

It's not a loose type pudding. It's slightly firmer, almost like a cross between custard and pudding and mousse. Nutty and rich. Top with whipped cream and enjoy!

This recipe has roots in a Japanese dessert called Kurogoma Purin:

Kuro = Black
Goma = Sesame
Purin = Pudding

That breaks it down pretty clearly, yes? ^_^

Black Sesame Paste

We love black sesame seeds so much that we purchase it by the two kilogram bag (and go through it quickly!) Black sesame is one of the most wonderful ingredients in the world.

Black sesame paste is made from roasted black sesame seeds that have been ground up super fine, almost liquified! All the oils from the sesame seeds are release and it has the texture of a liquid-paste. It's spreadable and spoonable and just very delicious.

You have 2 options when it comes to black seasme paste:

Purchase it from the market (what we do most of the time)
Make your own Black Sesame Paste (delicious but requires patience).

We have many recipes featuring black sesame seeds and black sesame paste. Start with these:

Black Sesame Toast - Who needs peanut butter and jelly on toast when you can have black sesame paste and honey on toast ^_^
Black Sesame Dessert Soup - This is a classic Chinese dessert (which falls into the category of Chinese sweet soups). We often ate this at restaurants growing up. Who knew it was so easy to make at home!
Black Sesame Sauce on Tofu - The black sesame is a key ingredient in the sauce/dressing. Feel free to replace the tofu with any other vegetable (think green beans and sugar snap peas).
Black Sesame Soy Milk - This is basically the black sesame version of our homemade soy milk.
Black Sesame Paste - Black sesame paste is a common ingredient in many recipes (including today's black sesame pudding recipe!) Instead of purchasing it from the store, you can make your own at home. But because it's extra work and we can never get the paste as silky as the store version, we often end up buying black sesame paste from the Japanese market.

We hope you love exploring the world of black sesame as much as we do.

Agar Agar Powder

Agar agar is similar to gelatin in that they are both gelling agents. There are several differences between gelatin and agar agar, but the main two is that agar agar is vegan and desserts made with agar agar set more firm (where as gelatin set desserts are more wobbly).

Agar agar comes in many forms, but powder seems to be the most popular and easiest to find. You can find it at any Japanese market (also available online but it's about four times (!) more expensive online).

Learn more about agar agar and find many dessert recipes in our agar agar dessert post.

Note: If you can't find agar agar powder (though it's really worth seeking out), you can use gelatin in place of agar agar for this recipe. Slightly different in texture but still tasty.

Ingredients

Here's what you'll need:

1 ½ cups whole milk (or soy milk) - I usually make this recipe with our homemade soy milk.
Agar agar powder
Black sesame paste
Sugar
Heavy whipping cream

Gather everything together and we can start cooking!

Adding the heavy whipping cream to the briefly chilled black sesame pudding mixture. — *Adding heavy whipping cream to the mixture (cooled ice bath for a few minutes).*

Step by Step Directions

Here's how:

Dissolve the agar agar powder.
Mix the milk and agar agar powder together in a small pot. Turn the heat to medium. Stir constantly (to make sure the agar agar powder dissolves and to ensure that the milk doesn’t burn or stick to the bottom of the pot) and bring to a gentle boil.

Add black sesame and sugar.
Once boiling, stir in the black sesame paste and sugar. Mix to dissolve.

Cool briefly.
Remove from heat, let cool for 10 minutes (or place in an ice bath and proceed immediately to the next step).

Briefly chilling the black sesame pudding mixture in an ice bath. — Whip the mixture to incorporate air.

Whip.
Pour in the heavy whipping cream and whip the mixture for 3 minutes.

Tip: Make sure you really whip, whip, whip the mixture to incorporate air. This makes the pudding still so rich and creamy but also light at the same time.

Portion and chill.
Divide the mixture between 3-4 small dessert bowls. Let chill in the fridge for 2 hours.

Enjoy!
Top with whipped cream, a few black sesame seeds, and enjoy! Serve chilled.

Tip: You'll probably have extra heavy whipping cream from the recipe (we always do because we get the big container of whipping cream from Costco Hawaii heheh). Just pour that whipping cream into a dry, chilled bowl and keep whipping till you get whipped cream!

FAQs and Tips

How long can this dessert keep?

2-3 days, covered, in the refrigerator.

Layered puddings?

More on this coming soon! We love to make a black sesame pudding layered with a soy milk pudding...so good ^_^

Additions or subtitutions?

You can adjust the sugar or use honey in place of sugar.
As long as you keep the final volume of liquid the same you can change up the ratios of whole milk (or soy milk) and the heavy cream. I wouldn't recommend doing all/only milk though (because the pudding won't be as creamy and velvety).