Pudding Failures
I am making homemade pudding every week for my mother in law who is on a solid restricted diet. My problem is I have about a 50/50 chance of it thickening properly. All recipes use cornstarch and it is my understanding the pudding temperature should not go above 180F. I use my trusty instant read thermometer yet I still have failure after failure. I give up. What would be wrong with using ap flour as a substitution? Still on the pudding note - When a recipe calls for whole milk could I substitute 1% or 2% milk and replace a portion with heavy (35% cream) or half and half? I almost always have creams but seldom whole milk. And yet another pudding question - I am attempting to add more protein in her diet and it seems most of the time if I add an extra egg it causes the pudding to thin again. Is this in my imagination?
Comments
Hi Leanne - I think ideally you want to get your pudding to between 180 and 185 degrees. The cornstarch, mixed with liquid, will thicken by 180 degrees, but the egg yolks won't coagulate until between 180 to 185 degrees. So it's possible that the eggs aren't quite coagulating before you take it off the heat and, therefore, the pudding isn't thick enough. A pudding relies on both the cornstarch and the eggs to thicken. You can definitely substitute any combination of dairy you'd like. We generally use cornstarch instead of flour because flour can make the pudding a starchy taste and a cloudy instead of shiny appearance. Hope that helps! Best, Lynn C.