indigo_rose99

I had a craving last week.  As is usual with food craving, just buying the sweet item will only make me feel lousy after I eat the corn syrup and sugar.  So, I searched for recipes I could modify into something me-friendly.  I was looking for a recipe made from real food -- no mixes, no cool whip.  I really wanted something that actually had me making the cookies, but I was willing to compromise on that. 

I ended up with The cookies were fine.  The bananas were fine.  The meringue was perfect.  

The problem was the pudding.  It never thickened.  It never even gave a hint of thickening.  And, like most recipes, this one didn't give any hints as to what parts of the recipe are flexible and what is critical.  I hate that.

For example, in my mother's panetone recipe, a lot of it is completely flexible.  In fact, I've changed most of the ingredients at one time or another.  But experience with the recipe has taught me that the one thing in the recipe that is completely critical is the rising part.  The dough must rise.  Do whatever it takes to make it rise.  Whatever It Takes.  Days.  Waiting.  Sitting the pan in a rotating sink of warm water.  Turning on the oven and sitting the pan of dough on top of the stove.  Whatever It Takes.  If it doesn't rise, there is no point in baking it.   Mom's recipe doesn't actually say that.  I learned it from watching her.  Ok, and being too impatient to wait and thus ending up with bricks.

I wish all recipes had Dummy's Notes.  You know, a sentence or two in the Banana Pudding recipe that said something like "If the hot mixture does not thicken and does not strongly resemble pudding after 15 minutes of cooling, dump it in the trash and start over."  Or, "If your pudding still resembles colored water after 30 minutes of stirring briskly, add ********." 

I'm convinced if I had a better grasp of chemistry that I would understand what element did not work.  Was it that I used agave nectar instead of brown sugar?  Was it that I skipped the water?  Was it that I stirred up the egg yolks too soon and then waited before adding them?  Was I supposed to keep waiting and stirring until it thickened?  I waited for 25 minutes! How do I know if it is hopeless or a little more of something will fix it all?