RECIPE - Pudim

As we mentioned in yesterday's post on Flavors of Brazil, the well-loved Brazilian dessert called pudim has many, many variations and there is no unique, true recipe for this dish. Every home cook makes pudim in their own manner, often just their way their mother made it. And that mother learned how to make pudim from her mother and on and on up the generations.

This recipe is, however, can make a claim to being close to the ur-recipe for Brazilian pudim. It's simplicity itself and the list of ingredients includes only those elements that are absolutely necessary for a successful pudim - no extra flavorings or fancy treatments here. It includes sweetened condensed milk which adds a flavor much prized by Brazilians and which became a pudim ingredients in the days before electrical refrigeration, when canning milk was the only way to keep it from spoiling in Brazil's tropical heat. Now, of course, refrigeration is common and there's really no necessity to included condensed milk, but Brazilians have come to love the flavor it imparts to pudim and so continue to use it.
__________________________________________________
RECIPE - Pudim

3 whole eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 measure whole milk, equal to can of condensed milk
3 Tbsp granulated white sugar
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Bring about 2 cups of water to the boil in a kettle and keep hot.

Caramelize the sugar (click here for instructions) and use it to line the bottom of a mold or tube-style cake pan.

Combine eggs, condensed milk and whole milk in a blender and blend at medium speed for three minutes.

Pour the combined milk and eggs into the mold or cake pan. Place the pan  in a casserole or lasagne pan, heat the water in the kettle to boiling and pour the water into the pan about 2 inches deep.

Carefully put the casserole in the oven and bake for about 30-40 minutes, until the top is browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of the custard comes out clean.

Remove from heat, cool the custard on a wire rack and when completely cool, refrigerate for at least three hours.

When ready to serve, unmold the custard onto a deep serving platter or plate and serve immediately.

Pudim - Brazil's Favorite Dessert?

It's impossible to say with any degree of certainty what Brazil's favorite dessert is. There are too many candidates and too many Brazilians with varying tastes to make a rash pronouncement as to the favorite dessert of a nation of almost 200 million persons.

However, it's quite easy to make a short-list of candidates, and few would argue that the dessert (or dessert family) known as pudim doesn't deserve a spot on the list. Pudim (pronounced something like poo-JING in Brazil) is a word that was imported into Portuguese directly from the English word pudding. In English pudding has several meanings depending on region and culture - it can be a catch-all word meaning dessert of any type, it can refer to blood sausage or other sausage types, it can be a steamed cake, or it can be a creamy dessert make from milk, eggs and other ingredients.

In Portuguese, pudim has this last sense, and when Brazilians think of pudim they're generally thinking about the type of dessert called variously around the world custard, flan, crème caramel or crème brûlée among many variations. Brazilian pudim combines milk (often in the form of sweetened condensed milk), eggs and sugar, with many additional flavorings optionally added.

These custard-type desserts came to Brazilian cooking from Europe, specifically from the Portuguese tradition of sweet-making. Often associated with monasteries and convents, Portuguese pastries and desserts frequently are based on the milk/egg/sugar combination. Pudim arrived on Brazilian shores with Portuguese colonists, but was received with enthusiasm by all sectors of Brazilian society, and today pudim has lost its specifically Portuguese connotation.

This simple dessert is infinitely variable, and Brazilians cooks have created numerous "tropical" variations on the original theme. Use of tropical fruits and liquors to spark up the relatively bland flavor of the original recipe is common. Other flavors, such as chocolate and coffee, also enhance Brazilian pudim. In the next few posts, we'll publish a few Brazilian pudim recipes - some very traditional and some modern variations.

RECIPE - Chocolate Bread Pudding (Pudim de pão ao chocolate)

Bread pudding - love it or hate it? Most people seem to fall into one or the other of those two extremes. As with the related rice pudding, people are either attracted to the dish's sweet, eggy, creamy taste and texture or repelled by it.

Part of the problem, in our opinion, is that for many people both desserts are in memory forever linked with school cafeteria, summer camp, or, God knows, even prison. Maybe it's the institutionality of bread pudding and rice pudding that puts people off.

Certainly, a badly-made example of either one can be quite nasty stuff. Pasty and glutinous, ghastly white, jiggly, a plastic dish of either to top off an already dreadful meal can be the straw that broke the camel's back.

But if these dishes are prepared with quality ingredients and with attention paid to detail and to presentation, they can be heavenly. Still eggy and creamy, but with just the right amount of sugar and a minimum of starchiness, they can be worthy of a place alongside flan, egg custard and crème brûlée in the pantheon of milk-and-egg desserts.

Most bread puddings contain rough-torn pieces of stale bread, still recognizable as such in the final products. And spicing is restricted to cinnamon, with perhaps a touch of ginger or nutmeg. The bread pudding in this recipe, which comes from São Paulo restaurant Casa da Li, uses a blender to homogenize all the ingredients prior to baking, and adds chocolate to give the dish a whole new flavor profile. It's practically unrecognizable as bread pudding, and it's delicious.

If you are serving dinner to bread pudding haters and are feeling sneaky, don't tell them what the dish is (just tell them it's Pudim de pão from Brazil). After they've eaten it and lavished you with praise, it's then up to you whether to spill the beans about it being bread pudding or not.
________________________________________________
RECIPE - Chocolate Bread Pudding (Pudim de pão ao chocolate)

3 day-old French rolls, torn into small pieces
2 cups (500 ml) whole milk
1 tsp powdered cinnamon
2 cups granulated white sugar
1/2 cup seedless raisins, soaked for 15 minutes in hot water
1 whole egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of clove
pinch of nutmeg
1/3 cup creme de cacao chocolate liqueur
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a heavy saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. Bring slowly to a boil over medium-low heat. When the liquid reaches a boil, stir in the pieces of bread. Remove the pan from the heat and let the bread soak in the liquid for 20 minutes.

Pour the ingredients from the saucepan into a blender and blend until completely homogenized. Let cool.

When the custard liquid is cool, separate the egg and beat the white until it forms soft peaks. Lightly beat the yolk. Stir the beaten yolk into the custard, then gently fold in the egg white. Do not overmix. Finally stir in the raisins and the chocolate liqueur.

Pour the custard into a non-stick tube or bundt pan, place the pan in a baking dish and pour boiling water into the dish to the level of the custard. Place in a pre-heated 350F (180C) oven and cook for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire cake rack and let cool completely.

Chill the pudding in the refrigerator for at least three hours. Unmould onto a decorative serving platter and serve immediately.


Recipe translated and adapted from Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.

RECIPE - Papaya Flan (Pudim de Mamão)

For lovers of any type of custard, flan, or crème brûlée, this easy recipe for a papaya-flavored flan from Brazil makes a nice change. The flesh of the papaya gives the finished product both a lovely soft orange hue and a subtle but distinctive flavor of the fresh fruit.

This flan benefits from being made in a pan that has been coated with caramelized sugar, but it is not obligatory to do so. I've not included the instructions for making caramel and lining the pan, but you can find them here.

I've only made this dish using mamão formosa, the large Brazilian papaya, but I'm sure that any variety of papaya would give the same result.
____________________________________________________
RECIPE - Papaya Flan (Pudim de Mamão)

1 1/3 cup cubed fresh papaya
1 1/3 cup sweetened evaporated milk
2/3 cup whole milk
3 eggs
boiling water for bain-marie
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preheat the oven to 300F (150C).

In a small, preferably non-stick, saucepan, heat the cubes of papaya over low heat, stirring constantly and mashing the fruit. Cook until the flesh is slightly dried out and its juice evaporates. Do not let the fruit brown or burn. Reserve.

In a blender or food processor on low speed, combine the papaya, the evaporated milk and whole milk. Add the eggs, one at a time, blending constantly, until you have a homegenous mixture.

Pour the mixture into a glass or ceramic custard form (previously caramelized if desired). Place the form in a bain-marie, fill the bain-marie with boiling water to the depth of the mixture in the form and put the bain-marie in the preheated oven. Cook for approximately 1.5 to 2 hours, or until a toothpick inserted into the flan comes out dry and clean.

Remove from the oven, and remove the flan from the bain-marie. Allow to cool completely while at room temperature, then refrigerate if desired.

Serve at room temperature or chilled.