I’m starting to doubt my ability to make bar desserts after this second failure in a row for Baked Sunday Mornings.
These bars are pretty simple: a graham cracker crust, filled with a slightly boozy chocolate pudding. That’s it. And pudding, it’s almost exactly like making ice cream, which I make at least once a week.
My crust baked up fine. The pudding is made stove-top, just like a custard ice cream base (except this has cornstarch). The vanilla pudding came off the stove smooth and thick and perfect (I’d make this again just as vanilla pudding!).
I poured the strained custard over my chocolate and mixed. It thinned out a bit, but still seemed okay. Then I added Bourbon. And waited, and waited, and the pudding was very runny.
I decided to have patience, and put the bowl of pudding in the refrigerator for several hours, stirring regularly so a skin didn’t form. It seemed to slowly get thicker. I finally poured the pudding over the crust just before bed and hoped that it would be set up in the morning.
My hopes were dashed as soon as I tried to cut into the bars – the pudding oozed around every knife cut, so I gave up. I gathered some crust and pudding and plopped it into a ramekin. We’ll call it pudding parfait. The flavor is great, so at least it won’t go straight into the trash.
To get the recipe and see the other entries from this week’s Baked Sunday Mornings head on over to Baked Sunday Mornings.
- Aunt Sabra King’s Pudding Bars (Baked Explorations, p. 124)
Looks super! I had my doubts whether it would cut into bars. I never have good luck with pastry cream – always runny, but this was much thicker, but not “cutable” in my opinion. So long as the flavor is good – who cares? It’s supposed to be messy (good, but messy)!
Your pudding dessert looks delicious. I agree that next time I am going to stick with vanilla base and not add the chocolate.
You know what, Sheri – no one would know this isn’t the dessert you intended to make – it looks great. I didn’t even attempt the bars – I have no idea how you could get a clean cut or remove them from a large pan intact.
you make ice cream every week?!? i want to live at your house :)
Sometimes even more than that! Trade you ice cream for your gorgeous photos. :)
This still looks incredibly delicious as a parfait! Sorry you had problems with the pudding, but so long as it still tastes good, no one will complain!