Recipe Notes: Vanilla Pudding

13 May 2019

Recipe from Cook's Country

I know what you're thinking: vanilla pudding, how boring can you get! I object to the use of "vanilla" to mean something is plain. Why shouldn't vanilla be recognized as the delicious, unique flavor that it is? I was excited when I discovered this recent recipe for vanilla pudding. I like to make pudding and, even more, I like to eat pudding. I have made, and written about, several different flavors of pudding but never vanilla, until now.

Making pudding from scratch is easy. A mixture was made by whisking together cornstarch, milk, and egg yolks in a large bowl. In a sauce pan milk, sugar, and salt were combined and brought to a simmer. Off heat, the hot milk mixture was whisked into the egg mixture. The resulting mixture was returned to the sauce pan and heated to 180°. Vanilla extract and butter were whisked in and the pudding was  strained into a bowl and refrigerated for several hours to set. That's all there is to it. The total time to make the pudding, not including the time to set in the refrigerator, was 30 minutes.

The resulting pudding tasted good, it had a lot of vanilla flavor and it was silky smooth. However, the  pudding didn't set properly. While it was runny it was still thick enough to eat with a spoon without the pudding spilling in your lap. I suspect I did something wrong, perhaps not heating it sufficiently. A few others have reported the same issue in the comments for the recipe online. Maybe I'll have to try this again to see if it will set up for me.

P.S. I made this again a few weeks later and it turned it fine with the consistency you would expect from pudding. I still suspect the problems I had the first time stemmed from not cooking the mixture enough.