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My friends and family know that I have a huge sweet tooth, so much so that if I ever pass on dessert, they look at me like I’ve grown a third eye. At home, I always have a jar of cookies and some nice dark chocolate to nibble on for the inevitable crankiness I experience around 3 p.m., when I begin to suffer the effects of both caffeine and sugar withdrawal. I’m committed to making desserts, too, and will happily spend hours, if not days, constructing the perfect cake orgingerbread house. My love for baking has gotten to the point that both my husband and neighbor have begged me to please stop foisting sweets on them.
Luckily for them, it’s the end of the year, and I’m tired. On days when baking anelegant cakefeels like too much—which is probably most days for people less obsessed with dessert than I am—I make an easy ginger pudding that I’ve loved since childhood. It takes less than 15 minutes to prepare and requires just three ingredients: grated ginger, milk, and sugar, which transform into a luscious, silky pudding with the help of a little magic.
What I really mean by magic, of course, is science. There is no cornstarch, gelatin, egg, orcustard powderin this recipe. Instead, there’szingibain, an enzyme in ginger that causes heated milk to curdle and set when combined with the root. InHong Kong Food City, cookbook author Tony Tan notes that “it’s the starch in the juice of the old ginger that sets the milk.” (Anecdotally I’ve found that very young ginger doesn’t properly set the pudding, but most of what’s available in grocery stores will work perfectly well.) Most of the time, curdling milk is considered bad—you really don’t want to see it unless you’re making cheese. But in this case, the quick curdling of the milk leaves you with a wobbly, barely set pudding that balances sweet and spicy. The creaminess of the milk is the perfect foil to ginger’s kick.
To make this easy pudding, first grate your ginger with a Microplane or ginger grater, and press it through a fine-mesh strainer or piece of cheesecloth to extract the juice. Gently warm your milk with sugar (you’ll want it to be in the range of 149º to 158º F), and once the milk comes to temperature, pour it into small bowls. Add the ginger juice and—here’s the hardest part—wait 10 minutes. You’ll be tempted to touch it or give it a jiggle, but patience is key. Disturbing the delicate curdling process may result in a ginger-flavored hot milk beverage, which, while still delicious, isn’t what we’re looking for. Once it’s set, you can enjoy the pudding at room temperature or chill it in the fridge for later. Personally, I can never resist spooning into the soft curd immediately.
I still want to make aBûche de Nöelfor my holiday dinner. (Yes, I saiddinner.) But on evenings when I can’t summon the energy to make a laborious dessert, you’ll find me at my kitchen counter, contentedly polishing off my bowl of ginger pudding.
