Pumpkin Spice Tapioca Pudding

Staying with the elimination phase gets easier when comfort food is part of the plan, not the thing you gave up. This pudding is creamy, warmly spiced, and made entirely from compliant ingredients, so it can sit in the fridge as a ready treat across a long week. It makes ahead well, which is part of why it earns its place during a stretch of the protocol that asks a lot of you.

The pumpkin is a source of beta-carotene, the orange plant pigment the body can convert to vitamin A. The cinnamon and ginger are warming culinary spices that carry the whole 'pumpkin spice' feeling without any of the seed-based spices that the elimination phase sets aside. None of this is medicine in a bowl, and it is real, whole-food nourishment in a form that feels like dessert.

Serve it cold, maybe with a spoon of coconut cream and a last pinch of cinnamon. Take the moment. A small bowl of something that tastes like the season is worth pausing over.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups full-fat coconut milk (or tigernut milk, if you are avoiding coconut)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger powder
• 1/4 cup tapioca pearls

Garnish (optional):

• coconut cream (the firm layer scooped from a chilled can of full-fat coconut milk)
• AIP-compliant caramel sauce
• toasted coconut flakes
• a pinch of cinnamon

Method

1. In a saucepan, bring the coconut milk, pumpkin puree, maple syrup, cinnamon, and ginger to a boil, whisking to blend. Drop the heat to low.
2. Stir in the tapioca pearls. Simmer gently for about 12 minutes, stirring often, until the pearls turn translucent and the pudding thickens.
3. Divide among four dishes and refrigerate for about 2 hours, until set.
4. Serve cold with the garnishes you like.

Notes

• Conventional pumpkin pie spice usually includes nutmeg and allspice. Both are set aside on AIP elimination, so this version builds the warm-spice profile from cinnamon and ginger alone. The flavor still reads clearly as pumpkin spice.
• For a coconut-free version, tigernut milk substitutes one for one and is elimination-compliant.
• To toast coconut flakes, use a dry skillet over medium heat and watch closely. They brown in a few minutes and burn fast.

*Adapted from asquirrelinthekitchen.com*

---

*Provenance: source-derived (re-grounded). Method rebuilt in ARM's own words from the ingredient list in /Users/Christopher/Documents/Claude/01-Projects/ARM/aip-source-archives/a-squirrel-in-the-kitchen/pumpkin-spice-tapioca-pudding-paleo-aip.md (asquirrelinthekitchen.com, author Sophie Van Tiggelen). Ingredient quantities used as factual reference. Introduction and health framing written fresh from ARM's food-as-medicine framework. No third-party method text reproduced. Pumpkin spice is built from cinnamon and ginger only; nutmeg and allspice are excluded on AIP elimination and are not used here (the source had already dropped nutmeg, clove, and allspice). Tigernut milk noted as a coconut-free Core swap. Simmer time (about 12 minutes) from source, untested here and flagged for verify.*