I think Vanilla pudding has to be one of my favourites of the pudding flavours. Now when I am speaking here of pudding, I am talking about the North American kind of pudding, which is like a thick custard which is eaten cold, and comes in a variety of flavours. I am not speaking of the British pudding which essential is just a word to describe any sweet dessert enjoyed at the end of a meal.
Something incredibly beautiful happens to a simple vanilla pudding when you add the flavours of cardamom and lemon. It becomes WOW! I set out to make a simple vanilla pudding today and then my wheels started turning and I decided to amp it up a tiny bit. Am I ever glad that I did!
If you are a regular reader of my blog you will remember that the other day my stove/hob stopped working. We are waiting for an engineer to come and have a look at it. The appointment is on Monday. In the meantime we purchases a portable hot plate to use for simple cooking and heating things up. When we weighed the cost of eating ready meals or restaurant meals against the purchase of this, it was well worth it. Two dinners out would have more than paid for it. Problem solved, plus I can use it after for things as well. Cooking videos come to mind, but don't get all excited yet. I am not that good at figuring out how to do these things!
Now back to the pudding. This is a really simple dessert. Really simple. You need to only remember a few things . . .
One, don't be in a rush. You don't really want the milk to come to the boil . . . use a medium heat so that the bottom of your pan doesn't get too hot . . .
Also keep stirring/whisking as you cook it. This will go a long ways towards preventing lumps in your pudding,or scorching the bottom!
I can remember when we were children and my mother first started to work outside the home. She hired a woman named Mrs Robar to take care of the house and cook the meals for us children. She was a rather large woman with an abundance of hairy moles on her face. One day she made butterscotch pudding for us and she scorched it. The pudding was full of little brown lumps.
We children refused to eat it because we thought some of the moles had fallen off her face into the pudding. Children do think some really strange things . . . the poor dear.
You could of course use single cream or half and half instead of the evaporated milk. Both would work fine. In the interest of fat and calories, I chose to use no fat evaporated milk, which gave the same result . . .
A rich and delicious pudding that everyone will enjoy tucking into. Seriously you cannot taste the evaporated milk, and if you didn't see it going in, you would never know it was there.
Yield: 4Author: Marie Rayner
Vanilla, Cardamom & Lemon Pudding
Sweet, rich and delicious, this makes the perfect ending to a special meal.ingredients:
- 600ml evaporated milk (2 1/2 cups)
- 95g caster or granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
- 50g soft light brown sugar (1/4 cup packed)
- 3 TBS unsalted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp lemon extract
- 3 TBS corn flour (cornstarch)
instructions:
- Measure 480ml (2 cups) of the milk into a saucepan. Heat gently to a simmer, without allowing to boil. Whisk in both sugars and the ground cardamom, vanilla paste and lemon extract. Cook and stir until the sugar melts. Whisk in the butter to melt. Whisk the corn flour into the remaining milk and then slowly whisk it into the hot mixture, whisking constantly. Cook, stirring, until the mixture begins to bubble and coat the back of the spoon. Cook for a few minutes longer. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, allowing the wrap to touch the surface of the pudding. This helps to prevent a skin from forming. Alternately you can divide it equally between 4 serving dishes. Chill for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours before serving. Delicious!
You can also very successfully cut the recipe in half. I did today and it was just perfect. I am kind wishing I hadn't however, as now I am wanting more. Probably a good thing that I didn't make the whole recipe I think . . . Bon Appetit!
