{TWD} Real Butterscotch Pudding

Hello, both a.l.e. and j.d.e. here, taking over the Tuesdays With Dorie post because our mom was busy grappling with our Christmas tree.

When our mom approached us individually about cooking one of the Tuesdays With Dorie recipes together, we both separately picked this one. Fate! I [j.d.e.] am a notorious fan of butter, and my sister is a notorious fan of scotch, so this post is, one could say, the perfect mix.

a.l.e and j.d.e., keeping a watchful eye on the simmering scotch

While j. and Mom fiddled around with various ingredients, I (a.l.e.) got down to the very serious business of ascertaining the most optimal Scotch for the occasion. Cautionary tales of boozy grown-ups-only-style puddings ringing in my head, I began the taste testing. Now, we have a pretty prodigious liquor cabinet going, and that is especially true in terms of Scotch Whisky:

After DQing several (including the 3 unopened bottles) - Laphroaig was way too smoky, Edradour was too wonderful to use up in a pudding, Tallisker made me go "Phroooowargh" - it was down to the Macallan 12 yo and the Glenfiddich Special Reserve 12yo. The latter took the prize. A word to the wise: it would probably be best to aim for a mellow single malt rather than the strong variety as suggested by the recipe. Even a blend would work - Cutty Sark and J&B were close runners up in butterscotchy flavor potential.

I, however, don't like Scotch, so I was happy to absent-mindedly stir bowls of ingredients (unnecessarily) and provide for the music (alternating between singing David Bowie and the music from Les Miserables). We decided to make two variations of the pudding: one for the girl who thinks that Scotch tastes like burned jet fuel, and one for the other, who has instituted a cocktail hour in our household. We decided to make my version (1/3 recipe) using none of the scotch, double the vanilla, and a tablespoon of eggnog, and my sister's (2/3 recipe) was made using the technique whereby the scotch is added while the milk mixture is heating, so that we didn't get that "I'm eating cold, mushy congealed raw scotch" sensation.

Despite several mishaps, which luckily all happened to my sister's (non-alcoholic) batch, the puddings tasted fantastic. Besides forgetting to set aside some milk for the sugar/egg mix rather than dumping it all into the hot sugar, I started making the next batch in the Cuisinart before the first batch had been through its final mixing. We made do with a whisk and Mom's whisking talent and arm-power, and though slightly lumpier than the next batch, it was v. good. Having learned from our mistakes, the Scotchy batch came out picture-perfect, and tasting just like butterscotch should.

here's the real boozehound in the family.

the verdict:

Hi, Nancy here! This pudding was our dessert for Christmas dinner. We found it absolutely delicious. All of us preferred the "with scotch" version - even the scotch-hating j.d.e. It was silky smooth (from the food processor) and subtly butterscotch-y (from the scotch).

We had such fun cooking this together - I'm so thankful that my girls are such competent hands in the kitchen and also that they're great at writing guest posts! I'm going to cry when they leave home this weekend, going 950 miles and 4,700 miles away, but in the meantime we're doing lots of cooking... and talking, and laughing!


I've had fun baking all 5 of December's recipes. Luckily we were given leeway on which order we could bake and post our creations; this was a huge help during the busy holiday season!

The pudding was technically last week's Tuesdays with Dorie assignment, and was chosen by Donna of Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases, who made an incredible butterscotch pie with it (you can find the pudding recipe on that post or on page 386 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours. )

This week Anne of Anne Strawberry chose the Tall and Creamy Cheesecake (which I posted last week!). Go to her post to see an incredible peppermint bark cheesecake and find the recipe. Or you can pick up your very own copy of Dorie's book (cheesecake recipe on page 235-237 ).