Coffee Cream

This pudding isn’t exactly exciting looking, it is after all beige and it’s what granny would have called “a shape”. I adapted this recipe from a Margeurite Patten one which was actually in the section of “food for the elderly”. It uses up half a can of evaporated milk and as I often have exactly that much left over from doing a particular pasta dish, I thought I would give it a try.

1/2 large can evaporated milk
2oz sugar
3 heaped dessertspoons cornflour
water
1 tsp instant coffee granules

Make the evaporated milk up to one pint with water. Blend the cornflour, sugar and coffee with some of the milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil. Pour onto the blended mixture and stir well. Return to the saucepan and bring to the boil again. Continue cooking, stirring all the time until it has thickened.

Pour the mixture into a mould. Leave to cool and set which will take several hours.

If you can remember Symington Table Creams, this pudding tastes and has a similar texture to those puddings. I read somewhere that you can still get the Symington ones but I haven’t seen them for years.

Basically it’s a very thick custard mixture which sets when it is cool. The sky’s the limit flavour-wise with this sort of recipe because you can add any kind of flavouring you fancy.

The original recipe called for vanilla essence but I tried coffee, in future I’m going to add some booze, probably Bailey’s Irish Cream. I’ll also try cocoa and I’m going to have a go at Maple and Walnut which was my favourite Symington one, I’ll use maple syrup instead of sugar but I’m not sure about the walnut flavour. Is there such a thing as walnut or pecan essence?

This is a very simple store-cupboard dessert, but it’s still tasty.