Thursday, January 16, 2014

My First Attempt at Home-Made Vanilla Pudding!

 Above is a picture of all the ingredients I used. :)

Welcome back to Nina’s Kitchen! :) For this experiment I was curious to see if Almond Milk would affect home-made pudding! Being somewhat sensitive to milk, I always drink Almond Milk. I figured since regular 2% milk has 8% total fat, 8% cholesterol, 16% protein, and 18% saturated fat, then the regular 2% milk would make the pudding richer and condense. It is also less pasteurized than Almond Milk which would help thicken the pudding. Almond Milk has 3% total fat and no % of saturated fat. It has 0% cholesterol and less than one gram of protein. Since there is no saturated fat in Almond Milk, there are no fatty acid chains packing together tightly, unlike in 2% milk. This is why I believe Almond Milk will make the pudding less rich and maybe a bit watery!
Hypothesis: If I use Almond Milk instead of 2% milk in home-made pudding, then the pudding will be less thick and more watery than the pudding with 2% milk.

Independent Variable: Using Almond Milk instead of 2% milk

Dependent Variable: consistency of the pudding (thickness)


How did I keep this controlled??

I used the same exact recipe from The Science of Good Cooking book by America’s Test Kitchen, I cooked the mixture for the exact same amount of time, I cooked both at the same time with the same stove top oven, and I put both puddings in the same fridge at the same temperature for the same amount of time.


How did I measure this?

I took a cup of the pudding and turned the measuring cup over and timed how long it took for the pudding to leave the cup and reach the bowl. I waited until all of the pudding was out of the cup.


In an ideal world…

I would have used the exact same sauce pans to make the pudding in. I wanted to cook them both at the same time to get them in the fridge at the same time and did not have two of the same sauce pans. I would also have used two of the same bowls to put them in in the fridge. Since pudding takes so long to set, I had to get both in at the same time. I did not have two similar bowls to use which may alter the results. Also, I could not find whole milk at the grocery store and had to use 2% milk, this may alter the cooking process a little bit. I would have also found a different way to measure the thickness because timing the seconds to pour out the pudding was not the most accurate way! 


Ingredients Used!

·         3 tsp vanilla extract
·         ½ cup sugar
·         2 Tbsp. cornstarch
·         ¼ tsp salt
·         3 large egg yolks
·         ½ cup heavy cream
·         2.5 cups whole milk
·         5 Tbsp. butter
·         Silk PureAlmond Light Milk (replace with whole milk in other mixture)


What to do with these ingredients?

1.      Whisk the sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a large saucepan.

2.      Add the egg yolks and cream and whisk those in the same large saucepan as well.

3.      Finally add the milk and whisk.

4.      Put saucepan over medium heat and cook while whisking constantly for 5-8 minutes.
Below is a picture of the 2% milk pudding mixture in the saucepan.

Below is a picture of the Almond Milk pudding mixture in the saucepan.


5.      Remove from heat and add butter and whisk.

6.      When butter is fully melted then add vanilla extract.

7.      Strain the pudding into a bowl and place in fridge for at least four hours.
8.      Take out when done and serve!


What happened?!

Unfortunately, the pudding did not ever set. I’m not sure if I messed something up during the cooking portion or if it was the ingredient portion. Either way, both of the puddings were still liquid after hours of setting! Here were my results of how many seconds it took to pour the pudding:

Seconds
Almond Milk
2% Milk
Try 1
3.8
4.4
Try 2
3.7
4.6
Try 3
3.9
4.3
Try 4
3.6
4.3
Try 5
3.7
4.5


The average amount of time it took for the Almond Milk to pour out was 3.74 seconds and the 2% milk average was 4.42. My hypothesis was rejected. The Almond Milk seemed much smoother than the regular milk, although both were liquid basically. The taste was phenomenal! Both were very sweet and had a great vanilla flavor. The Almond Milk pudding actually tasted better than the regular milk which was an interesting surprise! 

As you can see, the Almond Milk bar on the left was greater in seconds of the poor than the 2% milk bar on the right. 


Below is a picture of the 2% milk final pudding.


Below is a picture of the Almond Milk final pudding.


I guess my home-made pudding didn't turn out as I wanted it to, but I went out of my comfort level and tried something I have never done before! 

2 comments:

  1. Nina, even though the pudding didn't set up I think you got some pretty clear results anyways. The pudding made with Almond Milk looks a lot more appetizing than the one made with 2%. Plus it's healthier too, which is always a plus. I wonder what kind of results you'd get comparing Soy to Almond milk? Something to think about. Great job!

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  2. Hey Nina, I thought you did a great job although you did not necessarily get the pudding to turn out. I actually had a few problems of my own as well, it seems these recipes need to be followed so strictly -- not much room for error or variation. Your data is well organized and easy to understand. It is interesting to think about the molecular interaction that differs between the milk or almond milk, very interesting idea.

    Good Job!

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