Butterscotch Pudding..I need help!

[wisk]

Hello all!

Tonight, the wife wanted butterscotch pudding so I went to the store and bought butterscotch chips. Then I got home and didnt have any milk to make the custard so I used cream. Everything went fine until I strained the custard into the bowl. After straining, it looked like it broke. I wisked it back together and it seems fine.

a few questions:

1) why is milk used in most pudding recipes? Is cream ok to use instead?

2) After the milk or cream comes to a boil for the first time, is it ok to add the chips? I looked up some recipes on the web and a lot of them use brown sugar.

Any advice would be great. thanks!

[momoreg]

Please tell me you used more than the 2 ingredients you mentioned. Yes, pudding should contain milk, but that's the least of the problems with your formula.

Butterscotch chips are mostly fat; combine that with cream, which is also high in fat, and you have a very fatty mixture, without an emulsifier to hold it all together. (Sort of like ganache, but obviously it doesn't work with your butterscotch chips).

Pudding contains thickeners and emulsifiers, which prevent separation, but in the case of butterscotch, the flavor doesn't come from melted down butterscotch, but from sugar and brown sugar.

I hope this helped.

[wisk]

I basically made a pastry cream but with cream and before tempering into the yolks, I added the chips.

When it set up, it was really thick and grainy. I guess next time, I will try using brown sugar and milk!

[Mezzaluna]

Sounds like your butterscotch chips may be the problem. What are they made of?

[PhishStyx]

I don't know about the butterscotch chips but I always melt a small amount of white chocolate in my pastry cream when making banana cream pies but I don't add it during the cooking. I make the pastry cream per the standard method and when it's finished cooking I pour it into a bowl containing the white chocolate and a little butter and mix it up. I've never wound up with a grainy texture. Of course white chocolate and butterscotch chips aren't the same thing. Making it yourself with brown sugar works really well and tastes great.