Foodists

Milk Puddings with Rosewater Syrup

Gotta love Donna Hay. Five years ago I bought Off the Shelf: Cooking from the Pantry which is filled with decent recipes all accompanied by her trademark high-key photos. Ever since then I’ve been meaning to make the Milk Puddings with Rose Water Syrup, but was always thwarted by some circumstance or ill-suited menu. That is, until now.

This past Saturday we created an Indian feast for a group of friends. It was to be a very heavy meal and I thought this dessert would be the perfect compliment. One variation I incorporated was the addition of cardamom pods to the milk infusion to lend a bit more of the traditional Indian flavourings so familiar in their rice puddings.

Pudding:
1-1/2 tbsp powdered gelatin
3 tbsp water
3 cups (24 fl oz) milk
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
3 green cardamom pods (optional)
1/3 cup castor (berry) sugar

Rosewater Syrup:
3/4 cup (6 fl oz) water
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon rosewater
1-2 drops red food colouring

Place the gelatin and water in a saucepan over low heat and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Add the milk (I used homogenized, but you can use whatever suits your diet), vanilla bean, cardamom pods and sugar and heat for 5 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and cardamom pods and pour the mixture into 6 x 1/2 cup ramekins or similar moulds and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. To make the rosewater syrup, place the water and sugar in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer for 3 minutes. Add the rosewater and cool. Note: the rosewater I used was clear, therefore, to get a nice pink colour for the syrup I added a couple drops of red food colouring. Use a white plate to test a spoonful for each drop of colouring added until you get a pleasing light pink pastel colour.

To serve, unmould the puddings onto plates and spoon over with the rosewater syrup. Alternatively, spoon syrup into ramekins and serve as is. Serves 6.

Yummy! Thanks Donna.