Salted & Malted Caramel Pudding

Now, who wouldn’t want to eat this?

Pudding might be seen as a more childish dessert, but maybe this one is more grown up

Time:1 hour 20 minutes plus cooling

Difficulty: 1/5

Ingredient Availability: 5/5

I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever made pudding from scratch before, but this recipe doesn’t make it seem intimidating. I chose to make this one: because caramel pudding sounds good and two: I had malted milk powder I only used once before. So, it would be a good chance to use a little bit more of it.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

There’s not much to it

While nothing from this recipe was left out, I think its so simple that you really need everything in it. Sure, you could skip out on the whipped cream and Biscoff garnishes, but even those contribute something in the end.

Tools:

• Whisk

Cooking Review:

Making Pudding: 1 hour

This recipe starts off with some of the heavy whipping cream being warmed in a saucepan so that it doesn’t solidify your caramel when it’s added. While I warmed the heavy cream, I worked on the caramel. Water and sugar was added to another saucepan over medium heat to dissolve. I used a pastry brush and a cup of water to brush the sides of the pot throughout this process, preventing crystals from forming on the sides. Once the sugar was fully dissolved, I began swirling the pot instead of stirring it. The caramel slowly got darker and darker, but as it got closer to being done, it darkened quite quickly, so it is important that you keep an eye on it. Once the caramel was sufficiently dark, the heavy cream was added off the heat to stop the cooking. The milk and vanilla paste were added after that and returned to the heat until just starting to bubble again. The eggs were separated and whisked together with the cornstarch, salt, and malted milk powder until pale and began to thicken before the caramel mixture was used to temper the eggs (mixing in about half slowly to raise temperature). The tempered egg mixture was stirred into the rest of the caramel before being put back on the heat, whisking constantly until thickened. Once the pudding was done, it was transferred to a bowl, covered with plastic wrap, and put into the refrigerator to chill.

Whipping Cream: 14 minutes

Just so you know what to expect if you decide to subject your arm and shoulder to this, it took me 14 minutes to whip 1 cup of heavy cream by hand to soft peaks. I served my pudding with this and some Biscoff cookies.

If you have a hand mixer or stand mixer, maybe use it?

Analysis:

The caramel flavor of this pudding is fairly strong and pairs well with the whipped cream which tames it slightly. The cookies also work well with the pudding, adding a nice textural contrast as well as matching a lot of the flavors already present in the pudding. I really like that the whipped cream doesn’t have any added sugar, as the pudding has plenty of sweetness and flavor on its own. The pudding was pretty easy to make, just make sure you don’t burn your caramel, which would ruin the whole thing. It came out nice and smooth and I’ll give it a 8/10. While it is good, it’s not anything super special in my opinion. The flavors are pretty consistent and don’t really surprise me in any way. With that being said, this is a very good make at home dessert with low effort.