Afternoons can be spent taking a nap or making desserts. I so much prefer to sleep, but occasionally sacrifice sleep for something sweet 🍰. An easy to make dessert is the caramel custard pudding; there are many versions of this abound, the no bake type, no egg type; but I prefer the baked version with eggs.

Method (serves 6):

First up, the caramel made from 1/4 cup granulated sugar melted on medium flame in a saucepan. Pour the golden liquid syrup into the baking tray, rotate the tray for an even spread and set aside. Don’t let the syrup brown too much, it will have a bitter taste. And I did not add water to make the syrup, some recipes do. I take it off flame as soon as the colour turns honey golden; it doesn’t take much time.

Next up, preheat the oven for 10 min at 180℃, both upper and lower heating rods switched on.

For the pudding mix

• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar, powdered
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Start with beating the eggs, add the powdered sugar, followed by the milk and vanilla essence. You can strain the mixture into another bowl. Adding powdered sugar is better as the sugar crystals may remain undissolved at the bottom and will get caught in the strainer. Pour the strained mixture into the baking tray, on top of the set caramel. You may hear a cracking sound, it’s fine, just the caramel base.

Some recipes add milk powder to thicken the mixture, I did not find it necessary.

You are going to double boil the pudding mixture, hence place the pudding tray in another bigger tray containing water at room temp. The water level outside should ideally be at the pudding level; not too high as the water will boil in the oven and start to bubble over.

I place the tray on the second rung from the bottom in the oven. Now with only the bottom heating rods switched on, at 180 ℃ for 50 min should be ideal. It takes 25-30 min for the water to start boiling and then the rest of the time for the pudding to set in the heat.

Some people use boiling water to place the pudding mixture, in that case, the time required to set will be shorter, but hot water in an out of the oven, handle with care!

After the bell goes off in the oven, let it sit for another 10 min in the residual heat; then take it out and run a knife along the inner edge of the tray to loosen out the sides of the pudding and then turn it upside down onto the serving plate; it’s done !

Have it hot or let it cool and then cover it with a saran wrap and keep it in the fridge; eat it later, cold, it’s yummy either way !😋

Till next post, take care !!