Time for Sweet Melissa Sundays! Today's dessert is Butterscotch Pudding, picked for us to try from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Jennifer of Maple n' Cornbread, thank you Jennifer! You can find the recipe for this pudding here at Jennifer's site.
While I am a huge butterscotch fan, I'm not really into puddings, especially puddings with egg. The only time I've made puddings at home were for Tuesdays with Dorie, we are not big pudding eaters here. But I just had to give this a try and see how it compared to the butterscotch pudding we made for TWD in December 2008. I ended up liking that one and Melissa's pudding had a very different ingredient list which made me curious.
The kids and I absolutely loved this pudding, picky husband hasn't tried it yet. ETA -- picky husband reluctantly tried one tiny bite, then requested the remainder of the ramekin, so that means it was a hit with the whole family :) It had an amazing butterscotch flavor and I enjoyed caramelizing the sugar, that is always a fun process to watch. I tasted the caramel cream before adding it to the egg yolks and it was too salty for me. I would decrease the salt from 1 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon for a full recipe. I made a half recipe and used 1/2 tsp salt and think 1/8 would have been plently -- the salt did mellow down a little after baking, but I would still add less than called for next time. The perfect butterscotch flavor surprised me since there is no butter or scotch in this recipe.
I baked my ramekins, covered with foil and in their water bath, for 65 minutes -- at 60 they still looked too jiggly. I did notice the top of the puddings (above where the water bath was) were more set than the bottom, almost giving a two layer effect. But both layers were delicious and I really did not taste an eggy note at all in these, they were so creamy and smooth, really perfect texture. I can't wait to make this again and maybe make it into a pie or tart, I'm so glad I didn't let my non-pudding-liking tendencies get the best of me and skip this one or I really would have missed out.