It should be soft enough to retain the impression of a squeeze, when ripe. The interior is blackish-brown, with an odd texture. I use a fork to remove the seeds and whip/mash up the pulp with honey or orange juice concentrate. It whips up shiny and smooth, like pudding.

Unfortunately, my tree dropped its entire crop during the drought this year. I hope you enjoy your fruit!

Lisa

Thank You! That helps a lot. This is my first time tasting the fruit, so I don't want to mess it up. My own tree is getting to maturity, so I am excited. But I was given the fruit from someone who has tons of them and doesn't like them at all. I hope I like it. Either way, the tree is lovely.

Sorry about your loss, I would be heart broken if I lost all of my annual crop of any fruit. I baby some of these beauties all year.

I understand! I love my tree too, for its beauty as well as the fruit. From what I've read, the fruit is great with ice cream, or in baking. The few I've eaten were mild in flavor, but inhaled by myself and my husband. There wasn't a lot of contemplation..

I'd like to have enough to experiment with, to try all the suggested methods/recipes with..

My 10' tree was loaded with fruits early this year, but since my tree is planted on a rise(we used to have flooding here) and we had a bad drought, it dumped the baby fruits. I admit to some tears...

But Florida is a bad place to plan ahead on crops. Whatever you want, you will get the opposite, or worse. Something always goes wrong.. No Plums for the past 3 years, now I have Plum fruits in December!! I doubt they will mature..

Lisa

Ok- so I tried the fruit today.
When you cut it open it is black inside and kind of dry. I tasted it plain- it really had almost no taste at all.

I scooped it out and mixed it with some honey. It mixes up smooth and shiny. It kind of tasted like honey.
I mixed some with OJ and it tasted like OJ.

Later tonight I will mix it in with milk and vanilla and see what it tastes like then.

It is not bad, it just is kind of non-descript. Not chocolatey at all. It may take finding just the right recipe to really bring out its best.

Black sapote are quite variable tree to tree. I was given fruit from two different trees someone had, one's fruit was persimmon or tomato shaped, the other was taller than wide. Two different levels of quality too. The taller one was much superior. The interior was blacker and smoother with less fiber. Consequently I've planted the seeds from the better one, and have 5 small 2' trees going, will plant out two next spring. I usually peel about half the fruit, and start chomping my way to the seeds, and set the seeds aside and spoon out the rest. The good ones are worth it.

Gary

The name of "Chocolate Pudding Fruit" refers to how it looks, whipped up(G). It does not have a chocolate flavor unless you add Cacao powder. Then, it both looks and tastes like chocolate.

I like it anyway... But I tend to give odd fruits a lot of leeway(G). I enjoy experimenting with them, trying to find the best way to enjoy them. If I ever get enough Black Sapotes, I want to bake desserts using them. Fund recipes online that sound good.

Lisa

Tonight, to the half I saved (in the refrigerator) from this morning, I added some milk and vanilla and a little artificial sweetener and it is really tasty!

Thanks for all the info. I can't wait for my own tree to produce!

If its from seed it has to become a pretty large tree to produce, I haven't heard particulars from grafted production. They are beautiful trees, as are grumichamas. When I plant out my two black sapotes, they are going in a prominent spot to show off their beauty.

Gary

We've had a black sapote tree in our yard for about 20 years, and get bags of fruit, It was nearly killed by Hurrican Wilma, but after servere pruning, it's bearing again. We've never noticed any particular fibrousness, but claims by nurseries that "it tastes exactly like chocolate pudding" are blatant marketing lies. Eaten out of hand, it's pretty bland, but is easily used in cooking: think carrot cake, zuchini bread. A favorite recipe is to whip some up with a little rum and whipped cream, a very tasty dessert. Jamaicans in our neighborhood stop by to ask for the fruit in season, apparently it's popular there, although native to Mexico.

A squeeze of kaffir lime juice is a superb addition .
Really good ones have a mild date flavour .
Mum adds pulp to fruit cake and also makes a mean dark rye bread with it , xclnt in a smoothie with banana & yoghurt