Archive for the ‘Puddings, Custards and Mousses’ Category
When I was a kid, I never really had butterscotch pudding. I liked vanilla and chocolate puddings and often campaigned to see pudding cups in the fridge or in my lunch. Butterscotch puddings seemed overly sweet, even to me, when I had them so it just wasn’t a go-to flavor for me. That said, the first time I had homemade butterscotch pudding, I was a convert. Silky smooth and not too sweet in spite of its rich brown sugar flavor, homemade butterscotch pudding had me hooked from the first bite.
This is my version of Classic Butterscotch Pudding, a recipe I’ve been making in one form or another for years now. It gets its butterscotch flavor from dark brown sugar and a small amount of butter that is added to it. There isn’t enough butter to make the pudding taste buttery, but there is enough to ensure a clear butterscotch flavor. The finished pudding is not too sweet and it has a very good balance of brown sugar, dairy and vanilla that makes it quite addictive. Fortunately, since the pudding is neither too sweet nor too heavy, there is nothing wrong with giving into the addiction and having a second serving. Dark brown sugar is going to give you the best finished product and the richest butterscotch flavor. That said, golden brown sugar and even light brown sugar will still work well and produce a tasty pudding.
I also really like the consistency of this pudding. It is not too thick and not too thin, but a silky smooth medium somewhere in between. If you do like your pudding on the thicker side, add an extra 1/2 tbsp cornstarch to thicken it up a bit more. When I make pudding, I’ll use any kind of milk I have in the fridge, whether it is whole or skim milk. Whole milk will always make a slightly richer pudding, but skim milk will actually work out just fine if that is all you have. I recommend using whole milk or at least reduced fat for a pudding that has the best balance and as creamy a texture as possible.
+Continue Reading
Bread puddings are one of those dishes that can be incredible versatile. Like a basic muffin recipe where you can incorporate all different kinds of fruits, nuts and other goodies to change the flavor completely, you can do the same thing with a bread pudding. A basic bread pudding gives you a rich, custardy base for both sweet and savory dishes – and this Fig and Goat Cheese Bread Pudding happens to have both sweet and savory in one dish.
Figs and goat cheese are a great combination any time they meet. I used dried figs in this recipe, which have a rich and intense sweetness to them. Mine were very moist, but you can rehydrate dried figs in a bit of hot water if yours are on the dry side. You can also use fresh figs in this recipe if you have them. The sweetness of the figs contrasts very well with the goat cheese, which has a rich, tangy cream cheese-like flavor with a slightly savory/salty finish to it. The cheese incorporates easily into the bread pudding, but holds its shape and doesn’t melt, so you get pockets of sweet fig and savory cheese in different bites as you eat. The custard for the bread pudding is made with buttermilk, milk and a little vanilla extract.
This bread pudding sounds very grown up, and while it will certainly appeal to adults looking for something a little different, it has a beautifully balanced flavor that almost anyone will enjoy. The dish is fantastic for breakfast or brunch, but also works very well when served for dessert. Serve it plain or dust it with a little bit of confectioners’ sugar to highlight the sweetness of the figs and the vanilla in the custard. It is good both warm and cold (and leftovers keep well in the refrigerator for a couple of days).
+Continue Reading
One of the easiest mousses to make is a lemon mousse, made by folding lemon curd into whipped cream. This type of dessert is delicious, but I wanted to see if I could use it as a base for other simple mousses by trying the concept with other flavors of curd. A fruit curd is a creamy, sweet sauce made with fruit juice or puree, thickened with egg yolks and sweetened with sugar. While lemon curd is easily the most popular, it can actually be made with many different types of fruit. Fresh strawberries, for instance, make a very fine fruit curd that is great on its own and the perfect base for a light strawberry mousse.
This strawberry curd is made just like lemon curd, but using a freshly made strawberry puree where you might normally use lemon juice. I did not strain out any of the tiny seeds, but simply used the puree as it came out of my food processor. To made the curd, the puree is sweetened with sugar and thickened with eggs, resulting in a silky smooth, pink sauce that is a great topping for desserts. To turn it into a mousse, I simply folded some whipped cream into the strawberry curd to give it a light, fluffy texture.
The only catch with this type of mousse is that you can’t use too much curd in the whipped cream, or it will start to deflate it and make the dessert a little heavier. To get more strawberry flavor into my desserts, I put a spoonful of the strawberry curd at the base of each dessert glass before topping it with the strawberry whipped cream. The result was a lovely two-tone dessert that was light, creamy and bursting with fresh strawberry flavor.
+Continue Reading
Tiramisu is traditionally made with ladyfingers dipped in coffee that are layered with a rich mascarpone cream. I like it because I love the coffee element of the dessert, and I also like the fact that it is so easy to put new flavor variations on it that it’s hard to get stuck in a rut with it. Rum and marsala wine often appear in tiramisu recipes, and I make a version with Bailey’s that I like. This time around, instead of playing with adding new flavors, I wanted to play around with the cheeses used to make the recipe.
This Ricotta and Cream Cheese Tiramisu uses a blend of ricotta and cream cheese in place of where a mascarpone-based cream would usually appear. The ricotta gives the cream a little bit of texture and lightens up the cream cheese, which adds a rich and tangy flavor to the ricotta. I kept my flavoring simple and added a little vanilla to the creamy filling and a little to the coffee mixture that I dipped the ladyfingers in. The finished dish had a lovely texture to it and was slightly more dense than other tiramisus, but it was also a bit more satisfying to dig into. The coffee flavor came through very well, too. This dessert is finished perfectly with generous dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream to add a bit of extra sweetness and lightness every time your spoon picks up some of the cream with the rest of a bite.
I opted to make my tiramisus into single-serving sizes and put them into coffee cups to serve. As your coffee cups will probably differ in size from mine, I’m only approximating the number of ladyfingers that you’ll need to finish off your desserts. In general, you’ll probably need a couple of half-ladyfingers for the middle and bottom layers, and several whole ladyfingers to ring the desserts. If you prefer, you could assemble this in a small baking dish rather than as individual portions. The coffee mugs make for a great presentation – and also make the tiramisus very easy to hold if you choose to enjoy yours while watching a movie on the couch after dinner!
These need to chill for a few hours before serving to let the flavors meld a little bit. They will keep well for a day or two, covered, if you want to make them in advance.
+Continue Reading
Rice pudding is one of my favorite comfort food dishes. I almost always save leftover steamed rice, whether it is homemade or came from leftover Chinese takeout, so I know that I can whip up a batch when the mood strikes me. I usually make my rice pudding with vanilla and simply let the flavor of the milk shine through in the finished pudding, but if I’m looking for something even more indulgent, I bring some Nutella into the picture.
This Nutella rice pudding is made simply be stirring some Nutella into a batch of what would otherwise be plain rice pudding. The rich chocolate hazelnut spread adds a tremendous amount of flavor, leaving you with a very decadent dessert. To enhance the color of the pudding, as well as highlight the less-sweet chocolate notes of the Nutella, I added a small amount of cocoa powder into my rice pudding mixture. The thickness of your finished pudding will be influenced by the type of rice you use and I would recommend using a starchier, shorter-grain rice for the best results, but just about any rice will do the trick when the craving hits.
Now, I have to admit that I don’t find chocolate rice puddings to be quite as attractive as vanilla puddings, but a little bit of whipped cream – regular or Nutella flavored for any big Nutella fans out there – solves the problem nicely and dresses up the dessert. I used Nutella whipped cream on this batch, but even plain, unsweetened whipped cream can add a nice bit of contrast to a finished dessert in this case.
+Continue Reading
