Yesterday I bought a pie. There were four reduced price fruit pies on the shelf, two labelled apple, two rhubarb. I chose an apple one, because I knew Rob would like apple better than rhubarb. But when I cut it open later it was rhubarb...
I know it was reduced, but I did rather expect it to have the advertised fruit inside! just as well neither of us are violently allergic really!
I know it was reduced, but I did rather expect it to have the advertised fruit inside! just as well neither of us are violently allergic really!
Luckily we don't mind rhubarb, so we ate some anyway.
I used to despise rhubarb crumble/pie/tart as too sharp and unpleasant, but I'm starting to develop a taste for sharper fruit without needing the application of half a ton of sugar (or custard) to mellow the taste.
I do find I need a bit of sweetness to offset them, but not to the extent of burying the flavour, which I used to always do (even with apple, I couldn't stand the hint of sharpness).
Stewed rhubarb, though ... not sure I'm a fan. It's probably a what-you-know thing, since I adore crumble, and that's basically the same thing with added crunch, lol!
For my taste, stewed rhubarb needs lots of sugar - I have to really shovel the stuff into the saucepan with the raw fruit before I boil it. It is indeed probably a matter of what someone's become used to; perhaps if Mum had cooked less-sweet crumbles back in the '50s to early '70s, I'd like them that way now.
Perhaps, but perhaps not - my mum doesn't like sharp flavours either, and always cooked bland fruit dishes when I was a child, but I grew up to love sharp flavours like lemon and rhubarb.
It's vanilla pudding powder. To make sauce you simply take twice the milk it says on the package, and about 1,5 times the sugar.
The making is easy and the same for all the puddings and sauces: Use about 1L of milk (or whatever the package says), put it in a pot and heat it. Before that, take a few spoons of it off and add it to the pudding powder and sugar and make a smooth blend. When the milk is boiling (rising) you pull it from the fire and add the cold powder-blend. Stir well. Cook again and keep stirring ALL the time. This stuff will stick and burn easily. After about 5 min the sauce gets thick. You can then serve it hot or let it cool, whatever you like.
They also sell the packages for sauce, or without cooking, but the hot pudding stuff tastes better.
Hope that helps. I'm pretty sure you'll find something similar in a supermarket where you live if you check the pudding or baking sections :)
The method of making the sauce sounds very similar to that for making Bird's Custard. From the way the sauce thickens, I'd guess that there is cornflour in the Dr. Oetker pudding mix, as there is in the custard powder.
As I'd be the only one eating it, I'll have to scale down the quantities to make 200ml or so of sauce.
The main product I've seen of theirs is frozen pizza. I don't think I've ever seen the pudding mix, but then I've not been looking for it. I wonder if blancmange would be a suitable equivalent?
Blancmange (its name 'white-eat' always makes me chuckle) might possibly be convertible into a sauce; I'd try and get a look at the ingredients of the Dr. Oetker mix (if I can find them somewhere on that there Interweb) and compare them with a typical blancmange mix. It might well be worth a try.
The downsizing should work if you use a scale or measure the tablespoons that are in one package. The sauce keeps for a few days in the fridge, too. I keep saying sauce because I am never really sure if what you call "custard" is more saucy or more pudding-like. We're probably talking about the same thing :)
The Bird's Custard powder that I use is actually a substitute for 'real' custard, which is made with eggs, and which, I believe, can be made into a more solid form for use as a dessert rather than a sauce.
Custard powder (which is basically flavoured and coloured cornflour) is sold in cardboard 'tins', and is made up with sugar and hot milk into a hot, thick yellow pourover sauce for desserts like crumbles, and fruit pies or puddings. I love the stuff! In my experience, any that is left over after the meal tends to solidify, though not completely. At my table, though, it doesn't get the chance to do that, as I scoff the lot :)
MinL once bought a fruit pie and it was meat!