Caramel Budino

Directions

The first thing you’re going to do is make the caramel sauce.  You can and should do this ahead of time because you’ll want it to cool (or mostly cool) before you use it.  One of the best things here…you’re going to make more caramel sauce than you need for this particular recipe, so you will absolutely have extra left over, and it’s amazing on things like ice cream or apple pie.

Score!

Pour 1 cup of sugar into a saucepan and heat it over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until the sugar melts and turns a nice amber/brown color.  Make sure to watch this (and stir) and don’t let it burn.

As soon as the sugar is melted, add in 6 T of butter.  Just so you know, the sugar will bubble and spatter a bit when you add the butter, so watch your hands.  Continue stirring until the butter is completely melted.

Next, add 1 t vanilla and then slowly pour in ½ cup of the heavy cream, still stirring constantly.   Like above, the sugar mixture will bubble and spatter when the cream is poured in, so be careful.  Boil this mixture for a minute and then take it off the heat. 

Add in 1 t of the salt and stir that in.

Once your caramel has cooled a bit, transfer it to an airtight container to use for this recipe, and for your late-night ice cream binge!

When you’re ready to make the budino part of the recipe get a saucepan, add in the brown sugar, cornstarch and ¼ teaspoon of salt and mix until they’re well blended (no heat yet).  Add to that the egg yolks and milk and whisk everything together until that’s well blended and turn the heat to medium.  Cook at medium, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and comes to a boil.  Once it starts boiling, continue cooking (and continue whisking) for another minute and then take the pan off the heat.

 

 

Stir in 1 ½ t vanilla and the remaining 2 T butter until that’s all blended and pour everything into a small bowl.  Let it sit for about 15 minutes but don’t let it set.  If it starts to set, stir it a bit to keep it in liquid form.

While the budino is cooling, take out some containers for the final presentation.  This is one of those situations where you can use parfait glasses or cool mason jars…but I don’t have them and I’m not a fan of buying things for one use.  So, instead, I used water glasses.  They were a perfect size.

We’re going to do some layering here, and it’ll look kind of cool.  Take half of the crushed cookies and put them in the bottom of your glasses.  Next, add a layer of budino and then pour about a tablespoon or so of the caramel sauce on top.  Then, repeat that – the remaining cookies, budino, then caramel.  Chill this mixture for at least a half hour, or up to a full day.

When you’re about ready to serve, make the whipped cream – in a bowl add 1 cup of the heavy cream, 1 T sugar and ½ t vanilla and beat with a hand mixer until peaks form.  (I admit, for these I cheated and used my whipped cream charger…it’s one of the few kitchen gadgets I highly recommend.)

Add a dollop of whipped cream on each glass and then sprinkle the coarse or flaky salt over each one.  If you want, you can also drizzle a little more of the caramel on top of each one, for effect.

These are pretty rich but they’re incredibly good.  Enjoy!