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Puddings
(pood'ings)
— in the form of flans, custards, porridges, dumplings and tarts
— range from sweet to savory, with textures from soft to moderately hard.
Pudding is a thick, soft dessert, typically
containing flour or some other thickener (such as tapioca), milk, eggs, a
flavoring, and sweetener. The earliest
puddings of cereal, breadcrumbs and suet were stuffed in sausage skins, enclosed
in a pastry and baked. Today, puddings serve as a main dish,
such as corn pudding or as a dessert as in chocolate
pudding, snacks or treats for special
occasions. In Britain, it means the
dessert course of a meal.
Some puddings, such as bread and rice, are universally popular,
but incorporate regional or cultural variations.
There are four major ways to
prepare puddings: steamed, baked, boiled and neither cooked nor baked, but
rather chilled in the refrigerator until it gels. No
matter how prepared, all puddings have a silken texture and come in a wide
variety of flavors. (See
PUDDING TYPES).
 If
a pudding recipe calls for
unsweetened chocolate, try substituting it with bittersweet, which will give
a smoother texture. The reasons? First, unsweetened chocolate has
a lower percentage of cocoa butter than bittersweet, resulting in less of a
smooth texture. Second, bittersweet contains some milk solids and lecithin
(an emulsifier), both of which create a smoother, creamier texture and
mouthfeel. |
Steamed puddings are made by mixing the
ingredients and then pouring into a tightly covered mold. It then goes into a
waterbath which is fashioned from a pot where the water only comes up 2/3 of the
sides of the mold. The pudding is then steamed on the stovetop for hours with
the heat on low until done.
There are several different types of baked
puddings. Some types of baked puddings begin on the stove and finish in the oven
like rice pudding. In others, the ingredients are just mixed and baked in the
oven such as Bread pudding.
Boiled puddings are the easiest and quickest to
prepare. They are constantly stirred on the stovetop until thickened and can be
made in such favorite flavors as vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch.
A mousse is an example of a pudding-like dessert
that is not cooked or baked. Rather whipped cream and/or safe egg whites and/or
gelatin is folded in with melted chocolate, pureed fruit or other ingredients.
It is then chilled to gel and then served.
PUDDING TYPES:
BETTY: Dating
back to colonial America, betties are baked puddings made of layers of sugared
and spiced fruit and buttered bread crumbs. Though many fruits can be used, the
most popular is Apple Brown
Betty, made with sliced apples and brown sugar.
| Puddings
come off the stove hot, but must be cooled to room temperature, or even
chilled, before they can be used. Speed the process by maximizing
the surface area from which steam can escape.
1. Spread the pastry cream or pudding out across a rimmed,
plastic covered baking pan, then cover it with another piece of plastic wrap
to prevent a skin from forming.
2. Snip a number of holes in the plastic wrap to allow
steam to escape. |
BLANCMANGE [bluh-MAHNZH]
A simple cooked pudding made of milk, cornstarch, sugar and vanilla. Gelatin may
be substituted for the cornstarch. The hot mixture is poured into a mold,
chilled, unmolded and served with a sweet sauce or fresh fruit. The original
blancmange used pulverized almonds in lieu of cornstarch.
BREAD PUDDING:
Bread pudding consists of bread, milk (or cream), sugar, eggs, and (sometimes)
flavorings. But they could be put together in any number of different ways,
yielding very different results, from a baked custard with slices of French
bread on top to a rich, treacle pudding with sauce--really more of a pudding
cake. In all, bread pudding should have a golden brown top made up of crispy
pieces of bread with great chew, and a not-too-sweet pudding/custard, with some
of the bread having been soaked and dissolved in the filling.
Dense white bread purchased at a local bakery makes the best
bread pudding, so does Pepperidge Farm Hearty White Bread; both hold up well
enough during cooking without being overly chewy and heavy, which can be a
problem. To make a crust, reserving two cups of bread cubes to be put on top of
the pudding just before baking was just the thing. Brush them with butter and
sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
 Chocolate
pudding can be called the chocolate version of a classic
stirred custard thickened with
cornstarch. Typically, a cornstarch custard is made the same way
by cooking a mixture of sugar, cornstarch, eggs (or egg yolks), a bit of
salt, and a dairy liquid in a saucepan on the stovetop until thickened. |
The filling should be rich and silky rather than thin and eggy.
Baking at a low oven temperature of 325 degrees proved best because it's really
a custard, which should be baked
under low heat. Bread pudding should wobble like a Jell-O mold when removed from
the oven, as continues to cook after removal. Another tip is to remove the
pudding from the oven just as it begins to inflate and rise up high in the pan.
A knife inserted into the custard should not come out clean but be partially
coated with half-set custard.
DIPLOMAT PUDDING: This
cold, molded dessert consists of alternating layers of liqueur-soaked
ladyfingers (or
sponge cake), jam, chopped candied fruit
and custard (sometimes combined with
whipped cream). Diplomat pudding is usually garnished with whipped-cream
rosettes and candied fruit.
HASTY PUDDING:
This easy, versatile dish was enjoyed by our Colonial
ancestors both in the morning for breakfast and after dinner for dessert. It's a
simple cornmeal mush made with water or milk and sometimes sweetened with
molasses, maple syrup or honey. If the dish isn't sweetened during cooking, a
syrup or sweet sauce usually accompanies a hasty pudding. It's served hot,
sometimes with milk or cream.
English puddings are popular desserts and
side dishes. Saxon pudding, a steamed brown bread pudding, uses dark rye
bread, chocolate, almonds and crystallized fruit. Yorkshire pudding, made
from cooked beef drippings, commonly accompanies a Sunday lunch of roast
beef, lamb or pork. It is served with gravy, mint sauce or applesauce. Plum
pudding, seen at Christmas and New Year’s dinners, contains suet, raisins,
currants, breadcrumbs, spices, fruit peels and nuts, and is served with
brandy butter, topped with holly and set alight with rum.
Mediterranean cooks make sweet, rich rice puddings using whole or ground
rice flavored with cinnamon stick, lemon peel, orange blossom, honey,
pistachio, almonds or hazelnuts. Traditional examples include: Turkish fried
semolina pudding, a pale brown, rich, soft pudding with pine nuts and
vanilla; and Tunisian couscous pudding made from semolina, nuts, dates, rose
water, seasonal fruits, pomegranate seeds and black raisins.
Indian sweet, rich, creamy puddings may be chilled or hot — cream, rice,
tapioca, milk, vermicelli and carrot bases are flavored with ghee, nuts,
rose petals, kewra essence, golden raisins and green cardamons. Halwa
pudding contains grated carrots cooked in milk until tender, with ghee,
cashews, golden raisins, sweetened condensed milk, cardamon and nutmeg.
Milk-based payasams contain semolina, green split peas or vermicelli,
flavored with spices and nuts and thickened with tapioca flour or almond
paste.
In Southeast Asia, puddings include: bubur pulot hitam, a sweet, chewy,
sticky, black rice pudding from Malaysia; Cambodia’s corn pudding;
Indonesia’s steamed green-colored coconut and egg pudding; Burma’s creamy
sago pudding; and Philippines’ sweet fruit and yam pudding. Latin American
flan, a caramel pudding, varies regionally, and may include cinnamon, grated
lemon rind and coconut, blanched almonds, cocoa or dark rum. Sweet,
caramelized milk pudding, or dulce de leche, is made with simmered milk,
sugar and vanilla and/or condensed milk. Mexican capirotada, a hot, baked
bread pudding has repeated layers of toasted, cubed white bread, butter and
a layer of sliced apples, almonds, raisins and coarsely chopped cheese,
topped with piloncillo syrup (brown sugar) and spices.
Caribbean puddings include: carrot with raisins, allspice and dark rum
served warm with hot rum sauce; banana and breadfuit; chipolata made with
cream, vanilla and candied fruit topped with maraschino cherries; and
Christmas steamed pudding served with brandy butter or brandy sauce.
from Weeks Publishing Co. |
INDIAN PUDDING:
This hearty, old-fashioned dessert originated in New England. It's a spicy,
cornmeal-molasses baked pudding that can sometimes include sliced apples. Indian
pudding is usually served with whipped cream, hard sauce or ice cream.
MIXES: Dry pudding mixes
take on two forms — cooked and instant — which indicate whether the formula
requires a pregelatinized or cook-up starch.
MOUSSE: is the modern day version of pudding, with a smooth and
creamy texture and is not cooked. Originally, the word mousse came from the
French term meaning "foam" or "froth".
PLUM PUDDING: The
name of this specialty comes from the fact that it originally contained plums,
which it no longer does. Instead, this traditional Christmas dessert is made
with suet, dried currants, raisins, almonds and spices. It's either steamed or
boiled and is often served warm, flamed with brandy or rum, and accompanied by
hard sauce.
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When
adding various flavoring liquids to a mousse, including strong coffee and a
variety of liquors and liqueurs, don't add too much. More than two
tablespoons will start to make the mousse slightly soupy. If you prefer a
stronger alcohol or coffee kick, try whipping some additional flavoring into
whipped cream, used as a topping
on the mousse. |
PUDDING CAKES:
Pudding cakes are basically
egg custards, but with two
improvements. Unlike ordinary egg custards, pudding cakes contain a little flour
and beaten egg whites. During baking, the beaten egg whites will float to the
top, forming a spongy, cake-like cap. Meanwhile, the remainder of the batter
settles to the bottom to make a pudding-like layer.
RICE PUDDING: At its best,
rice pudding is simple, lightly sweet, and tastes of its primary component:
rice. Medium or long-grained rice works best. At its worst, the rice flavor is
lost to cloying sweetness, condensed dairy, and a pasty, leaden consistency. By
far the best results came from cooking the rice and water in a covered pot
first, followed by simmering the cooked rice uncovered in the dairy mixture.
STEAMED PUDDING:
A sweet or savory pudding that is cooked (usually in a
special steamed-pudding mold) on a rack over boiling water in a covered pot. The
pudding mold is usually decorative so that when the finished pudding (which is
firm) Although steamed pudding can be cooked in a variety of containers,
there are special steamed-pudding molds with decorative sides and bottom, as
well as a lid that clamps tightly shut. Many molds also have a central tube
(like an angel-food cake pan) that provides more even heat distribution, thereby
cooking the pudding more evenly. When it is unmolded the pudding retains its
decorative shape.
Steamed puddings can take up to 3 hours to cook
on stovetop, half that time in a pressure cooker. They're customarily served
with a sauce. The traditional Christmas plum pudding, for instance, is
customarily accompanied with hard sauce.
SUMMER PUDDING:
This classic English dessert consists of sweetened fresh berries and often red
currants that are briefly cooked, then cooled before being placed in a
bread-lined casserole dish. The fruit is topped with additional slices of bread,
covered with a plate and weighted overnight in the refrigerator. The cold
dessert is unmolded and served with whipped cream.
YORKSHIRE PUDDING:
British roast beef wouldn't be complete without Yorkshire pudding, which is like
a cross between a popover and a soufflé and not at all like a pudding. It's made
with a batter of eggs, milk and flour, baked in beef drippings until puffy,
crisp and golden brown. It may be prepared in a shallow baking dish, muffin tins
or other small containers, or in the same pan as the roast. Like a hot soufflé,
Yorkshire pudding will deflate shortly after it's removed from the oven. This
specialty takes its name from England's northern county of Yorkshire.
Some information--Copyright (c) 1995 by Barron's
Educational Series, from The New Food Lover's Companion, Second Edition,
by Sharon Tyler Herbst and from cooksillustrated.com
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