Odelsa asked me for the recipe for homemade pudding. It's quite easy to do and using organic ingredients, it costs me about $2.33-$2.50 to make. I believe those pre-packaged 4-6 packs of puddings are usually around $2.00 or so. It would, of course, be cheaper to use non-organic items but do you really want to put extra strange things in your pudding? Mmmmm Antibiotic Flavored Pudding. Mmmmm Hormone Pudding. Yuck!! Anyways, on to the recipe:
You will need:
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup of sugar
Dash of Salt
2 cups milk <--As a side note, when I make Cream Puffs, I change this to 1 cup milk and 1 cup cream
OH--AND BY THE WAY NEVER EVER USE SKIM MILK!!!!! It's too thin (no fat content) to be of any use at all in baking and pudding making. Two percent works well in this recipe.
2 beaten egg yolks in a separate, small bowl
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons butter
Another important thing---please, please, please don't ever use margarine in baking. Or any other 'fake butter' whether you are baking organic or not. Putting inferior products in baking destroys the outcome. It won't taste as good and why go through the hassle of making and eating something that isn't as good as it should be? Once again, it's the fat content in the butter that is what contributes to a delicious cookie, dessert, etc so it IS necessary.
In a saucepan, combine cornstarch, sugar and a dash of salt. Add milk and cook over medium heat. Stir constantly unless you like brown bits in your pudding. I'd advise against the whisk---it simply cannot stir as well as a wooden spoon. When the mixture begins to boil, continue stirring and allow it to boil for one minute.
Then, slowly incorporate half of the mixture into the egg yolks. For those unfamilar with this method what I mean is this: Put your spoon in the bowl of egg yolks and start stirring furiously. Trickle in the tiniest bit of hot mixture. Keep stirring!! If you stop stirring or pour too much in at once, you are going to get scrambled eggs. Continue pouring the hot mixture into the eggs until about half of the hot mixture is now in the bowl.
Put the pot back on the stove and now slowly incorporate the yolk mixture into the remaining mixture in the pot. Don't forget to stir constantly. When the mixture boils, allow it to cook for 1 more minute and then remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and the butter until butter melts.
Pour into dessert cups or a bowl and chill. Or eat warm!
About that milk and butter...Use the real stuff! I can't repeat this enough. If you are watching what you eat a little bit never hurts. It is always better to have a small bit of the good stuff rather than loads of the sub-par stuff. I can't properly put into words the value of eating only good things but I know Laura once wrote a fabulous post about this!
