Pudding, How do you make yours?

Pudding is so versatile.  It can be a simple and easy dessert all by itself.  It can be made fancy with a pie crust and meringue.

This is a simple recipe:

Homemade Vanilla Pudding

Ingredients

   2 cups milk

   ½ cup white sugar

   3 tablespoons cornstarch

   ¼ teaspoon salt

   1 teaspoon vanilla extract

   1 tablespoon butter

Directions

Heat milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat until bubbles form at the edges.

Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt together in a small bowl.

Add sugar, cornstarch, and salt mixture to hot milk, a little at a time, stirring until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon.

Remove saucepan from heat, and stir in vanilla and butter.

Spoon pudding evenly into 5 serving dishes; chill in the refrigerator before serving.  

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/20586/homemade-vanilla-pudding/
.

This thread has been haunting me since you posted it and finally yesterday I made some pudding!

I didn’t have vanilla in any form so I made chocolate pudding with cocoa powder and also I used potato starch instead of cornstarch.
A quick search advised me to use a bit less potato starch than if I was using cornstarch.
The ratio was 1 part potato starch = 1,5 parts cornstarch.

The potato starch doesn’t like to be boiled, so first I mixed all the dry ingredients in a sauce pot really well and then added the cold milk.
Then I started heating it and mixed it with a whisk continuously until it bubbled. Then off from the heat and to a cold bath to cool it down, mixing a bit every once in a while. Then on to bowls and in to the fridge!

Today I whipped some cream to go with it, what a treat..!

Thank you for sharing.

That is an interesting concept, using potato starch instead of corn starch.

Would potato starch be something like instant potatoes?

I keep a box for instant mashed potatoes.  I have read that this product can be used to make thickening in things like soup and gravy though I have not tried using it.

Yes, with berries coming on soon and a bounty of chicken eggs, it's quick and easy pudding time.  Lately, I've been using cassava/tapioca starch as an added thickener.  A bowl of vanilla pudding with fresh raspberries or juneberries is a great light dessert this time of year.   A quick graham cracker crust can be made when a more ample pie is desired.  Thanks for the thread!...

Ah, we're all going to be making pudding tonight!!!

Potato starch is, well, starch, just like tapioca starch, arrowroot, corn starch. I used to get it when I lived in the US (it was what my mother always used to make potato pancakes, not sure why).

I don't have any tapioca grains for pudding, but I'm thinking a nice vanilla pudding will do just fine (have some good fruit to slice up and throw on top). Thanks for the suggestion!!!

(Ann, I've used the instant mashed potatoes for thickening things up, it works great)

Anne Miller wrote:
That is an interesting concept, using potato starch instead of corn starch.

Would potato starch be something like instant potatoes?

As Tereza already said, potato starch is just a starch. Very basic household item in Finland (corn doesn’t grow well here but potatoes do!) used in many things as a thickening agent just like corn starch. It’s also commonly used in cake batter, to make the cake more fluffy and moist.

Works as a baby powder too! I bough a 500g pack of organic potato starch for something like 1,20€ when my daughter was born. I used less than half of it when she was a baby, but I wonder what it would have cost to buy actual baby powder.. More than that! And I liked the ingredient list: just organic potato starch!


Now that you mentioned the instant potato mash, I do think it would make a tasty thickener for a soup! I might have to try it some day!