Delightful Homemade Custard Cups and Boston Cream Pie

I am a pudding lover! I love homemade pudding, Jell-o pudding, and everything in between. The smooth texture, refreshing coolness, and the fact it is a 'somewhat' low fat treat, makes pudding one of my favorite treats! The other day we were having family over and I wanted a different dessert for a change. I decided to make a pudding parfait with all sorts of different puddings and toppings. It was delicious!

Yes, you could make instant pudding, but these recipes were SUPER easy and SO much better than a boxed pudding. Not only is this pudding delicious, but it uses basic food storage ingredients. These puddings are a great way to use up the dry powdered milk in your storage. (ALL of the ingredients can be stored long term except for the egg. Powdered eggs will not work, you can just leave the eggs out and simmer for an extra minute or so until thick. These recipes thicken up really quickly, so you don't really even need the egg yolk :)
*I adapted the recipes from the cookbook What's for Dinner?


Here are the three puddings I tried and LOVED:

French Vanilla Pudding
2/3 c. sugar
1/4 t. salt
2 T. flour
2 T. cornstarch
1 can evaporated milk
1 1/3 c. water
4 T. powdered milk
1 egg yolk
1 t. vanilla

Combine dry ingredients in a saucepan. Gradually stir in evaporated milk and water. Over medium heat, bring to boil, stirring constantly. Let boil one minute. Beat egg yolk in a small bowl and stir in a small amount of hot mixture. Pour into pan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Let cool, stirring often. Serve warm or chilled.

Butterscotch Pudding
1/2 c. butter
4 T. cornstarch
1 c. brown sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1 c. water
3 T. powdered milk
2 egg yolks
1/2 t. vanilla

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir together , dry milk, and sugar. Stir in water and evaporated milk. Whisk until smooth. Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Beat egg yolks slightly and add a little hot mixture stirring until blended. Add to saucepan and bring to a boil again. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Serve warm or chilled.

Dark Chocolate Pudding
1 egg
2/3 c. cocoa powder
3 T. cornstarch
1 can evaporated milk
1 1/3 c. warm water
4 T. powdered milk
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 t. salt
1 t. vanilla

In a small bowl, beat egg and set aside. Combine cocoa, powdered milk, and cornstarch in a separate bowl. Whisk 1 c. evaporated milk into cocoa mixture until completely smooth. In a large saucepan, combine remaining milk, sugar, water, and salt. Mix well. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, whisking constantly. REmove pan from heat. Whisk cocoa mixture into hot milk mixture. Bring to a boil over medium heat; boil for 2 minutes, whisking constantly. Remove pan from heat. Gradually whisk 1 c. of hot cocoa mixture into the egg. Pour mixture back into pan. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, whisking constantly. Do not boil. Remove pan from heat. Add vanilla; blend well. Pour mousse into serving dishes. Cover and chill for 1 hour.

*In all of the above recipes 1 c. of milk was substituted for 1 c. of warm water and 3 T. dry powdered milk. This is a GREAT trick to using up your powdered milk. With the sugar and vanilla in the pudding you can't tell you used powdered milk. It makes for inexpensive AND delicious pudding!

A couple days later we still had leftover pudding (I doubled each of the recipes), so I decided to make a Boston Cream Pie. This is a SIMPLE cake recipe (I don't know why it is called a 'pie'??) All you do is make a regular Butter Yellow Cake mix, making as directed PLUS one small package of instant vanilla pudding. Put the cake into two round pans. Take out the cakes from the pans and cut the cakes in half (giving you four thin layers of cake). Put a layer of vanilla pudding in between each layer (you can also add a chocolate layer of pudding if you would like). Top the cake with a thick chocolate glaze (recipe below). Put the cake into the fridge until ready to serve. YUM!

Chocolate Glaze
2 T. butter
3 T. cocoa
2 T. hot water
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa and hot water and stir until smooth. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and stir until smooth.