Ingredients, technique keys to great pudding

HYDE PARK, N.Y. — If any food warrants a place on the ultimate list of comfort foods, it's pudding.

Yet "pudding" can be difficult to define. The name refers to dishes that are both sweet and savory, soft and firm, spoonable and sliceable, stirred on the stove or baked in the oven.

For many Americans, it is the custard-style dessert mom prepared on the stove from a few basic ingredients that most readily comes to mind. This simplicity — a combination of eggs, starch, sugar and milk cooked in a pot — is what makes pudding special.

The perfect custard-style pudding begins with the right combination of eggs and starch to thicken the base, provide structure and add flavor and texture. Starches can include cornstarch, flour, cornmeal, rice, tapioca and bread.

For dessert puddings in particular, sugar is essential. Not only does it provide sweetness, it also helps keep the eggs from overcooking by increasing the temperature at which the eggs begin to coagulate.

Milk or cream, as well as butter, extracts and chocolate, also are key, providing the pudding's flavor and mouth-feel.

And don't overlook the importance of quality ingredients and proper equipment (including a heavy-bottomed pot, metal whisk, wooden spoon and rubber spatula) to create a smooth and velvety pudding.

Technique matters, too. Because eggs cook at a relatively low temperature (whites around 140 F, yolks 165 F), cooking speed and temperature must be carefully controlled to keep them from overcooking or curdling. This is where the sugar comes in.

When you blend sugar into eggs, they don't solidify until about 185 F, giving you more temperature flexibility when heating.

The eggs also could be tempered, explains Peter Greweling, a baking and pastry professor at The Culinary Institute of America. This technique allows eggs to be introduced to a hot liquid without solidifying them.

To temper eggs, whisk them with a ladle or two of hot liquid. Once the eggs are slightly warmed, continue to add hot liquid in increasing amounts, doing so until you have added about one-third of the hot liquid, Greweling says.

"At this point, the tempered mixture should be hot enough to combine with the remaining base liquid without instantly cooking the eggs," he says.