Vanilla Pudding at Home

For breakfast, I had some vanilla pudding, with a cup of tea.

Well, "pudding". As longtime readers may have noticed, I have serious issues making pudding. And I adore pudding, so this really is a tragedy. Usually I chalk it up to me not following recipes, per usual. In fact, the last three or so times I've had pudding failures, I've used this recipe, but altered it in drastic ways. I had never made this pudding actually following the recipe.

So, having scored some vanilla beans at Penzey's (love Penzey's), I decided it was finally time to make real vanilla pudding like an orthodox little recipe-follower (or at least, I tried; I still cut down the sugar, because 2/3 of a cup sounded disgusting and deadly). It was supposed to be dessert last night.

And...failure. The same failure as always, oddly- the pudding won't set up. I am at a loss. It's probably not my milk (1%, sometimes 2%), because pudding is supposed to be made with milk, not cream, and many recipes call for lower fat milks. It shouldn't be my cornstarch, which is within date and stored in a ziploc baggie (but maybe it is? Too much humidity?). The sugar? I don't think so. My theory is that it has something to do with my heating technique, but I tried to be really careful this time, and it still happened. Yes, I have a food blog, and I still can't make Bittman's "practically foolproof" pudding.

So, breakfast was a delicious vanilla pudding beverage. It reminds me quite a bit of Oreo cookie filling in flavor. Next time, I would pare down the sugar even more- even half a cup is way too much for me. I'd also love to try the chocolate variation (again) once I know what my problem is.

The tea was pretty tasty, if a sad substitute for nice coffee. We are out, and I'm too lazy to schlep across town for great beans, but too sick of crappy coffee to settle for bad grocery store beans. Enter Morning Thunder. It's different enough from straight black tea to be drinkable in large quantities, and the black tea leaves mellow out the usually astringent and straw-like flavor of pure maté. And, even though Celestial Seasonings is technically no longer a local Colorado company, their art is still adorable.