About once a month during my girlhood, my mom would whip up a batch of instant pudding. We consumed it without whipped cream, unaccompanied by cookies or brownies — just plain pudding, uncomplicated and delicious.
Perhaps it was a yearning for this simple comfort of childhood that prompted me to purchase an unreasonable number of instant pudding packets back in March, when I was still bulk-shopping for the pandemic or the Murder Hornet plague, whichever came first. (Pandemic: Check. Hornets: Working on it.)
The upshot is that I’ve got a lot of pudding, which makes it an excellent topic for this article.
Berry Vanilla Bread Pudding
I decided to kill two birds with one instant pudding packet, so to speak, by creating a bread pudding recipe that not only uses instant pudding mix but also uses up those forlorn denizens of the bread box, extra hamburger buns and stale heels of bread. This dessert’s crowning glory is that it features fresh berries — a triple win.
Take four complete hamburger buns (that is, eight half-buns) and two heels from your last loaf of bread, the staler the better, but maybe draw the line at moldy. (I haven’t yet tried this recipe with hot dog buns, but the principle is the same.) Cut or tear them into roughly 1-inch chunks. Toast them in the oven for about five minutes at 350 degrees, just long enough to make them lose their softness, or to render them audibly crunchy if you accidentally drop a toasted chunk on the floor and then step on it, thus permanently lodging tiny breadcrumbs deep within your knitted slipper sole that will probably never wash out.
Next, mix a 3.9-ounce box of vanilla instant pudding mix with 2 cups of milk in a 2-quart baking dish. Whisk until it firms up a bit, then whisk in three eggs. Toss the toasted bread chunks into the pudding along with 1 cup of fresh blueberries, raspberries, blackberries or marionberries. You could also use a cup of diced fresh peaches or pitted cherries. Mix well enough to thoroughly coat the bread, but be gentle, because you don’t want to smash the berries.
Bake in a 350-degree oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool for about 20 minutes before eating. This bread pudding needs no sauce but it’s lovely with a dollop of whipped cream.
Chocolate Pudding Cookies
This recipe from www.myfoodandfamily.com comes in handy for days when you just need a cookie made with chocolate pudding. Or any cookie.
Heat up your oven to 350 degrees, then blend two sticks of softened butter or 1 cup margarine with 1 cup packed brown sugar until fluffy. (Yes, that’s a lot of butter and sugar. I feel I must caution health-conscious readers about this recipe’s sky-high caloric content. Perhaps you can pretend you’re blending two carrot sticks and a cup of spinach.) Now beat in one 3.9-ounce package of instant chocolate pudding. Finally, beat in two eggs until completely blended.
In a separate bowl, combine 2 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon baking soda, then add the flour mixture very gradually to the butter, sugar and pudding mixture. If you like — and if you’ve gotten this far in the recipe without flinching, I don’t see why you should stop now — add a 12-ounce bag of chocolate chips. You can also try making these cookies with butterscotch instead of chocolate pudding, paired with butterscotch chips, or banana pudding with white chocolate chips.
Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto an ungreased baking sheet 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes, or until the edges are slightly brown and set, although the center will still be soft. Cool 3 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer carefully to wire rack. The centers will stay soft and chewy even after they have cooled.
S’mores Ice Pops
Summer heat is here and the kids are always clamoring for ice pops. I don’t know why kids clamor, but they do, and the other thing they do is raise a ruckus. When your little darlings have their mouths full of these ice cream and chocolate pudding treats from www.allrecipes.com, the clamoring and the raising of ruckuses will cease, at least for a few precious minutes. Then the cleaning of sticky fingers, faces and furniture can begin.
First, scoop out 1 1/2 cups of vanilla ice cream and leave it to soften slightly on the counter.
Then, crush two whole graham crackers. Put them in a plastic baggie and smash them aggressively to work out your frustrations. Or just give the baggie to the nearest toddler and the crackers will be the consistency of space dust in about three seconds. They’ll also be all over your living room, but compromises must be made.
Next, beat together 2 cups cold milk and a 3.9-ounce package of instant chocolate pudding. Remove 1 1/2 cups of pudding for the ice pops and leave the rest for your toddler to smear on the wall, or to eat furtively by yourself after you’ve finally gotten the kids to bed.
To make the ice pops, sprinkle graham cracker crumbs into the bottom of each ice pop mold, followed by 1/4 cup of the softened vanilla ice cream, then another layer of crumbs, then 1/4 cup chocolate pudding. Top with another sprinkling of crumbs. Freeze for about three hours, which will seem like an eternity because your kids will ask you every couple of minutes whether the ice pops are ready yet. When they’re fully frozen — oh, the sweet relief! — loosen them from the molds by holding under warm water for a few seconds.
