Cooking with Kids: Homemade Vanilla Pudding

Homemade vanilla pudding is so simple and easy to whip up, you'll wonder why you ever needed to open up a package. Just six ingredients stirred together in a pot produce this beloved treat. Smooth and silky on your tongue, it's lightly sweet but sumptuously rich with vanilla. Try not to polish off the whole bowl yourself!

This week Eric and I made a classic homemade vanilla pudding. The ingredients and technique are simple, but there's nothing simple about that rich, creamy vanilla taste.

Cooking with Eric

In only a few more minutes than it takes to prepare a box of packaged pudding, you can have a bowl of your own homemade vanilla pudding made with wholesome milk, egg, butter, and vanilla, plus a bit of cornstarch, sugar, and salt. Just these simple ingredients come together in perfect vanilla pudding harmony. Let your willing kid chef stir and cook up the ingredients and there'll be a grin of pride on their face. Eric tells me he doesn't like other kinds of pudding, but his new favourite is this homemade vanilla one.

Let's Whip Up Some Homemade Vanilla Pudding

First you measure and add the cornstarch, sugar, and a pinch of salt into a saucepan, then stir them together.

Crack an egg into a bowl and whisk it til it's frothy. Then pour in the milk and whisk it all together. Most recipes call for two egg yolks, but we simplified it and just added a whole egg - the pudding was awesome! (And no wasted egg white.)

Then you cook and stir. It's when the magic happens. Pretty soon the pudding thickens to this lovely thick, creamy silkiness. Keep stirring.

Once the pudding's thick, take it off the heat and stir in a lump of butter and spoonful of the important stuff: pure vanilla extract.

Let it cool a bit (though you may want to sneak a spoonful while it's warm). Cover it with plastic wrap and chill it.

Awesome vanilla goodness!

You can pour it into little bowls for a fancy look.

It's luscious and creamy any which way. We had some of it layered with chocolate avocado pudding, cacao nibs, and toasted pecans as a decadent parfait.

But mostly we just enjoyed it plain with a spoon.

Homemade pudding is the best!

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Homemade Vanilla Pudding

Margaret Bose Johnson

Homemade vanilla pudding is so simple and easy to whip up, you'll wonder why you ever needed to open up a package. Just six ingredients stirred together in a pot produce this beloved treat. Smooth and silky on your tongue, it's lightly sweet but sumptuously rich with vanilla.

5 from 3 votes

Print Recipe Save to Pinterest

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 5 minutes mins

Total Time 10 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, Canadian

Servings 4

Ingredients

 

• ▢ 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• ▢ ¼ cup (50gms) granulated sugar
• ▢ ⅛ teaspoon salt
• ▢ 1 large egg
• ▢ 2 cups (480 ml) milk, 2% or whole milk is best
• ▢ 1 tablespoon butter
• ▢ 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

 

• In a small saucepan, stir together the cornstarch, sugar, and salt. In a bowl, beat the egg well with a whisk; it should be frothy. Gradually whisk the milk into the egg and beat it well to combine.
• Pour a little bit of the milk mixture into the dry ingredients in the saucepan and whisk until a smooth paste is formed, with no lumps. Add the rest of the milk and whisk until it is well combined.
• Set the saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally at first then whisking constantly as the milk gets hot, until the pudding thickens and starts to bubble.
• Turn the heat lower, and cook for 1 minute, whisking constantly. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.
• Let the pudding cool for 5 minutes, whisking twice during that time to prevent a skin from forming. Pour the pudding into a bowl. (For an extra silky smooth pudding, you can pass it through a fine meshed sieve into the bowl.) Place a piece of plastic food wrap directly onto the surface of the pudding, making sure the wrap goes right up to the edges of the bowl. This will prevent a skin from forming on the top.
• Once the pudding has cooled to lukewarm, place it in the refrigerator and chill it until it is completely cold, 2 to 3 hours (but there's nothing wrong with eating it while it's still warm, either). Stir the pudding before serving.
• Serves 4.

Notes

This recipe makes four servings of homemade vanilla pudding - I recommend you double it while you're dirtying the pot and make enough for eight. I betcha it'll disappear in the wink of an eye. Serve the pudding with some fresh berries on top or with a dollop of whipped cream and some crushed roasted pecans. Or have a plop of it on a pie or cake instead of ice cream. It's pretty fantastic any which way.

To get the ultimate smooth pudding, pass it through a fine-meshed sieve either before or after it has cooled. That will remove any bits of thickened egg or soft lumps that might be hiding in the pudding. If you're just going to scarf down big bowlfuls of it, there's no need to sieve it, but if you're serving it for fancy company, well, you know . . . .

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Guten Appetit!

For more fun cooking projects to make with kids, see the ‘Cooking With Kids’ series here.

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