I think Vanilla pudding has to be one of my favourites of the pudding flavours. Now when I am speaking here of pudding, I am talking about the North American kind of pudding, which is like a thick custard which is eaten cold, and comes in a variety of flavours.  I am not speaking of the British pudding which essential is just a word to describe any sweet dessert enjoyed at the end of a meal.

 

Something incredibly beautiful happens to a simple vanilla pudding when you add the flavours of cardamom and lemon.  It becomes WOW!  I set out to make a simple vanilla pudding today and then my wheels started turning and I decided to amp it up a tiny bit.  Am I ever glad that I did! 

 

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will remember that the other day my stove/hob stopped working.  We are waiting for an engineer to come and have a look at it.  The appointment is on Monday.  In the meantime we purchases a portable hot plate to use for simple cooking and heating things up.  When we weighed the cost of eating ready meals or restaurant meals against the purchase of this, it was well worth it.  Two dinners out would have more than paid for it.  Problem solved, plus I can use it after for things as well.  Cooking videos come to mind, but don't get all excited yet.  I am not that good at figuring out how to do these things! 

 

Now back to the pudding.  This is a really simple dessert.  Really simple.  You need to only remember a few things . . .

 

One, don't be in a rush.  You don't really want the milk to come to the boil  . . .  use a medium heat so that the bottom of your pan doesn't get too hot . . .

 

Also keep stirring/whisking as you cook it.  This will go a long ways towards preventing lumps in your pudding,or scorching the bottom!

 

I can remember when we were children and my mother first started to work outside the home.  She hired a woman named Mrs Robar to take care of the house and cook the meals for us children. She was a rather large woman with an abundance of hairy moles on her face.  One day she made butterscotch pudding for us and she scorched it.  The pudding was full of little brown lumps. 

 

We children refused to eat it because we thought some of the  moles had fallen off her face into the pudding. Children do think some really strange things . . .  the poor dear. 

 

You could of course use single cream or half and half instead of the evaporated milk.  Both would work fine.  In the interest of fat and calories, I chose to use no fat evaporated milk, which gave the same result . . .

  

A rich and delicious pudding that everyone will enjoy tucking into.  Seriously you cannot taste the evaporated milk, and if you didn't see it going in, you would never know it was there.

 

You can also very successfully cut the recipe in half.  I did today and it was just perfect.  I am kind wishing I hadn't however, as now I am wanting more.  Probably a good thing that I didn't make the whole recipe I think  . . .  Bon Appetit! 

    

My husband  has been asking me to make him a delicious rice pudding all week.  In truth he would be happy with a tinned rice pudding . . .  

I wouldn't be happy feeding him that however, and so today I finally found the time to make him a rice pudding.  I had a new recipe that I wanted to try out anyways, so it was win/win! 

  

  

I adapted the recipe from a cookery book I have entitled Snow Flakes and Schnapps by Jane Lawson.  Its a book I have had for quite a few years now and is filled with Winter types of food, comfort foods . . .  

Cuisine and recipes from cold-climate countries such as the Scandinavian countries, Russia, Eastern Europe, Austria, Switzerland, etc.  you can see my end result sitting on top of the photo of her pudding up there on the right!

 

There are three elements to the recipe . . .  the making of the pudding, which is rich and creamy and flavoured with vanilla, cinnamon, lemon and cardamom  . . . 

The making of a sweet thick cherry sauce and then finally, the making of crisp and sweet candied flaked almonds.

 

None of the elements of this recipe are on their own very difficult at all.  

In fact you could make the cherry sauce and the candied almonds well ahead of time if you wanted to and then just make the rice pudding itself on the day you want to serve it.

 

 

One of my favourite kitchen tools is my digital scale. I love this tool so much. I use it just about every day and would not be without a good Digital Scale in my kitchen. 

 Precision measurements are so important when baking or making special dishes that you just can't wing it on. These scales help you to do just that!

  

Making this rice pudding is as simple as stirring together some basic ingredients and flavour infusions  . . .  whole fat milk  . . .  double cream   . . . vanilla, cinnamon and cardamom, along with a piece of lemon zest pared from a lemon.  

Make sure you have none of the pith  . . . the pith will impart a bitter flavour.

 

This gets heated until the milk/cream are infused with their flavours and then you stir in the pudding rice.  Any short grain white rice will work.  I used arborio, which is the type of rice generally used for Italian risotto.

  

The cherry sauce is so easy to make.  I always keep a pack of frozen pitted cherries in my freezer.  

A pack of those, their juices, some sugar . . .  cooked and thickened with a slurry of cornflour and water and Bob's your Uncle.   The sauce is done.  

 

You could add a dash of cherry liqueur if you wanted to  . . .  and in all truth you could use a tin of cherry pie filling.  

I liked the idea of making my own cherry sauce however, and so I did.

 

You don't need to make the candied almonds, but they add such a lovely touch.  I could eat them like candy, but  . . .  I don't.

 

They are as easy to make as melting them together with sugar in a skillet until they turn golden brown and the sugar caramelises into a candy coating. 

 

Ladle the warm pudding into a bowl and top each serving with a spoonful of the cherry sauce  . . .

 

and a scattering of those sweet crunchy almonds  . . . 

  

You will be in rice pudding heaven . . .

 

Your family will love you . . .

 

You will love you  . . .

  

And all will be right in your little corner of the world  . . .

 

We had a lovely lunch at our friend's Tina and Tony on Thursday.  Tina is an excellent cook, and also used to cook for a living like I did.  I love going there for lunch.  Aside from the wonderful food, I know we are going to enjoy some great companionship with two people we really love to spend time with.

 

Our meal was really lovely (no surprise)! We feasted on Beef Pot Roast, roasted potatoes, carrots, string beans and cauliflower cheese.  It was all very tasty. (It always is!)

 

She actually had two desserts.  One was a slimming world friendly Jelly Dessert with fruit, and the other was this fabulous Vanilla Sauced Bread Pudding! 

 

She very graciously shared the recipe with me so that I could share it with you and here it is. Twenty four hours later I was making it for Todd, that's how good it was and how much we enjoyed it!  High accolades indeed!

  

I just happened to have a stale French stick that needed using up, so it all seemed to be meant to be.  I have a box of diet food arriving today, that I will be trialing a new Diet Plan all next week, so I wanted to get any desserts out of the way and out of the house before then! 

 

This really is a fabulous pudding and very simple to make.  Its basically just bread, milk, butter, sugar and eggs, with some vanilla and nutmeg for seasoning. 

 

Here's a handy tip if you are like me and grate your own fresh nutmeg.  I always end up with little bits from the ends of the nutmegs, which I have always been afraid to grate on my micro plane.  I don't relish the idea of grated knuckles or finger tips.    

 

What I do now is to save up a bunch of the ends until I have a few and then I grind them in my Cook House Coffee/Spice grinder.  It works a charm!  No waste and perfectly ground nutmeg!

 

Basically you soak the bread and raisins in milk and butter until it softens and then beat in eggs, sugar, vanilla and nutmeg, pour it into a buttered baking dish and bake. 

 

If you are not fond of raisins you could use chocolate chips, or vanilla chips, or dried cherries or cranberries  . . . . chopped dried apricots, figs or dates . . .  any dried fruit or even mix of dried fruits in the same quantities would work well!

 

Once the pudding is baked you make a simple vanilla caramel sauce, which goes together in a flash on top of the stove.

 

I like to pour just a little bit of this on top of the hot pudding when it comes out of the oven . . .  it glazes it very nicely.

 

After that it is ready to be spooned out into bowls . . .  with some more of the sauce on the side . . .

 

ready to pour over each serving  . . .  mmm . . . .

 

This is so, so, soooooo good  . . .  

 

The pudding is a but crisp on the outsides, but soft and unctuously moreish on the insides . . .  studded with sticky raisins  . . .

  

This is wonderful just as is with just more of the sauce spooned over top . . .  or with some pouring cream or warm custard  . . .  the North American in me would enjoy this with cold vanilla ice cream! The glutton in me would enjoy it with anything,  or even nothing at all!  😉

 

I know  . . . most bloggers out there are posting diet dishes now, helping you to shed the pounds after all of the holiday excess. I am not one to follow trends. You won't find veganuary on here or any other gimick.  I won't pretend to be what I am not.  I also don't do New Year's resolutions, but am looking forward to trying this new Diet Plan next week.  Thankfully I will still be able to cook for Todd!  Happy weekend and Bon Appetit!