You Know What Goes Well With Summer’s Berries? Pudding.
Here are two easy ways to make it yourself
Few things are more comforting than sweet and velvet-smooth pudding: Especially in the summertime, pudding pairs perfectly with whatever fresh fruit you can get your hands on.
Slice a strawberry over a ramekin of vanilla pudding, or layer in some vanilla wafer cookies for a parfait. Here are two ways to make a classic vanilla pudding — one egg-thickened, one starch-thickened. They’re nearly as easy as instant pudding, but with infinitely more flavor.
Pudding with a cooked egg-and-cream base is a custard. Gently cooked eggs lend a silken texture and rich, gentle flavor unmatched by anything else. There’s no real trick to cooking eggs for these recipes other than to tell you what you don’t want: overcooked eggs, which are essentially scrambled. To avoid turning your dessert into breakfast, you must cook eggs at a relatively low heat just until they thicken, to make them smooth and uniform.
You might skip the eggs in your pudding to let the other flavors shine through, to make a vegan dessert, or just lift your recipe. Cornstarch is usually your best bet — simple, reliable, and (as long as you cook it for few minutes) neutrally flavored.
