butterscotch pudding

it's no secret that i love pudding. i mean, really, how can you not like pudding in all of its various forms: regular pudding, panna cotta, pot de creme, creme brulee (which is clearly more pudding than custard)...i've posted a couple of pudding recipes here - chocolate and brown sugar - but nothing yet for vanilla or butterscotch. well, no vanilla pudding recipe yet, but here is a simple butterscotch pudding recipe. this is not nearly the revelation that marks the butterscotch pudding at upstairs on the square (far and away the best pudding ever), but it's still pretty good, especially for the simple ingredient list. this recipe still takes as long to make as traditional pudding, but since it uses cornstarch as a thickener, not egg yolks, there is no need to separate eggs for your mise en prep, nor is there any bother about tempering lukewarm and hot liquids that are sensitive to curdling. typically i don't add the butter that most pudding recipes call for, but in this case, to return some of the richness of egg yolks in the pudding, i did add the butter.

i suspect that a truer butterscotch pudding might involve building a more complex flavor through actually making caramel of some kind, but we'll leave that to a later experiment. oh, also: butterscotch puddings do tend to be sweet, and i found the original recipe i used to be just slightly too sweet, hence the addition of "scant" to the sugar measurement.

butterscotch pudding

scant 1/2c brown sugar

2T plus 2t cornstarch

1 1/2c whole milk

1/2c heavy cream

1T butter

1. in a medium saucepan (heavy-bottomed if at all possible), combine the sugar and cornstarch and whisk together until the majority of the lumps are gone.

2. whisk in the whole milk and cream. heat the mixture over medium heat until it boils, then allow to boil for one minute (sometimes this takes a long time, especially if your cream and milk were cold when you added them in; also, sometimes, cornstarch-based puddings will thicken before they boil - if this is the case, you can either consider it done, or wait until it boils to make it thicker).

3. remove the pan from heat and add butter. stir until butter is melted and incorporated. pour into a serving dish, ramekins, etc. if you don't want a skin to form on the top of the pudding (i actually like the skin), then immediately cover the surface of the pudding with plastic wrap - literally let the plastic wrap adhere to the pudding.

[serves 4]