Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Single-portion Puddings

I mentioned the individual portion desserts that Ben was making when I talked about our Rentrée Resolutions. The idea is to reduce costs (a little) and processed food (more than a little) in my packed lunches and the boys’ snacks/evening meals.

 
The cheapest, probably most ‘natural’ and certainly most popular desert chez nous is the individual rice pudding, which Ben makes in these little earthenware yoghurt pots which are easy to pick up from Vide Greniers in France. I was chuffed to find a set of seven with plastic lids, which make them perfect for my packed lunches! Ben also uses little individual pudding tins (surely from Lakeland Plastics decades ago…) to make crème caramel – this photo doesn’t show his best version, as he’s still experimenting to get the temperatures right, and these ones went into the oven in their bain mairie at too high a temperature…

You can also get yummy ‘entrement’ powder in the supermarket, which you stir into warm milk, to create chocolate, vanilla or speculos (yum) puddings! This isn’t really additive-free, of course, but is a little bit more economical than buying the cheapest ‘pot puddings’, so is probably worth doing. At UK prices jelly with cake pieces or fruit would also be a good option, but we have to pay import prices here, so that only works when someone’s been visiting!

Ben is having enormous fun producing all these puddings for us at the weekends – I think he likes to feel (just like his mum) that he isn’t leaving us without sustenance when he heads off to Lyon for his studies.

My contribution is the home-made yoghurt. Ang showed her excellent yoghurt maker on her related post the other day. Mine is different – it plugs in and you put seven individual pots (with lids again, hurrah!) into it overnight. My recipe is very like Ang’s – 1200ml of UHT milk, a little skimmed milk powder and an Actimel drink, whisked together, fills the pots and produce a week’s worth of yoghurt for very little cost. Ben, as a biologist, is generally sceptical of ‘health-foods’, but he is convinced of the superior nature of the lactobacilli they put into Actimel, and thinks that it’s worth buying that brand rather than supermarket’s own live yoghurt.  And now we’re on the lookout for a second yoghurt maker (they’re very easy to find second hand here) so that he can add yoghurts to his own, equivalent selection of individual puddings in Lyon. Ah, an excuse to visit some Troc shops… sigh…

6 comments:

Elizabethd said...

Those desserts look very appetising, Floss. Such a good idea to do individual portions.

Marigold Jam said...

Well done! Good idea. You can also save individual portions of other desserts for a left over pud should you get any left overs! You then have a choice on offer though this might cause problems if both boys want the same thing and there is only one!

Angela said...

I must try Actimel then, if Ben rates it so highly! I used Sainsbury's budget stuff for my most recent starter.

Thanks for the link

Healing Woman said...

Those little pots are adorable-no wonder your husband likes to putter around with them-hopefully he won't tire of making the puddings.

Purrfect Haven said...

great idea and they look so yummy! Its great to catch up with you again. Love Darcy, Bingley and Helen xxx

Penelope P. said...

What a good idea! You have inspired me. I'm going to make some individual rice puddings and have a look out for a second hand yoghurt maker! Penny L in Dorsetxx