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Cornstarch Pudding
6 level tablespoons cornstarch 3 cups scalded milk 1/3 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 cup cold milk Mix the cornstarch with the cold milk; stir the scalded milk slowly into this mixture and stir over hot water until the cornstarch thickens. Beat the eggs slightly; add sugar and salt; pour over them the cornstarch mixture and cook one minute longer. Serve cold with cream and sugar.
A plain boiled cornstarch pudding, the everyday blancmange of American home cooking before packaged mixes. It is simple, but the egg step at the end is where it succeeds or curdles.
- The hinge: return it to the heatThe instruction to "cook one minute longer" after the eggs go in is not optional. Pour the hot starch base into the beaten eggs in a slow stream while whisking, then return everything to the double boiler and cook, stirring, until it thickens slightly and no longer tastes of raw egg — a minute or two at around 170-180F. Poured over the eggs and left, the pudding will be thin and eggy.
- "Stir over hot water"This means a double boiler. A metal bowl over a pan of barely simmering water works; the water should not touch the bowl. Cornstarch scorches easily over direct heat, which is the point of the gentle setup.
- Scalded milkHeat the milk until it steams and bubbles ring the edge, roughly 180F, not to a boil. Scalding was traditionally done to keep raw milk from souring; with pasteurized milk it mainly speeds the thickening, and you can skip straight to heating the whole mixture if you prefer.
- Cornstarch measurementSix level tablespoons is about 45 g, or a bit over 1/3 cup -- a firm set that should hold its shape if turned out of a mold. For a softer, spoonable pudding use four tablespoons.
- Cook the starch properlyCornstarch needs to be held at a good heat for a few minutes to lose its raw, chalky taste and reach full thickening power. Over hot water this means several minutes of steady stirring after the mixture begins to thicken.
- Vanilla goes in lastThe ingredient list includes vanilla but the method never mentions it. Stir it in off the heat, once the pudding has stopped cooking, so the flavor does not steam away.
- Chilling and skinPress plastic wrap or buttered parchment directly onto the surface before refrigerating, or you will get a rubbery skin. Chill at least three hours.
- YieldAbout four cups, serving six. Turned into a wet mold it unmolds cleanly; the period serving of cold cream and sugar poured over is worth keeping.
Cornstarch puddings arrived in American kitchens with commercial cornstarch itself, which was manufactured in the United States from the 1840s onward and marketed heavily to housekeepers as a cheap, reliable thickener in place of imported arrowroot or the labor of a true egg custard. Recipes like this one sit at the meeting point of two older dishes: the French blanc-manger, a white molded jelly, and the English boiled milk pudding. This version is a teaching recipe " a fixed ratio of starch to milk, a tempered egg finish, a flavoring " of the kind that filled cooking-school curricula and loose-leaf collections in the era when domestic science pressed for measured tablespoons and level cups over the older method of judging by eye. The same formula, dried and boxed, became the cooked pudding mix of the mid-century supermarket.