Beth's Salted Caramel Pudding RecipeENTERTAINING WITH BETH

- Hey guys! Today, we are making
salted caramel puddings. One of the most decadent
desserts known to man. These things are addictive. They are delicious, creamy, and decadent.

They were inspired by my recent
trip to France this summer, and if you were following me
on Instagram and Facebook, you may have seen some images
of me in the salt marshes, where I had to stop at
the little salt boutique to buy some fleur de sel. It's a really charming part of France that's known for its salt and its butter and for its salted caramel desserts. I wanted to share with you my version for a salted caramel pudding. Let me show you how easy
it is to put together.

So the first thing we're going
to do is make our caramel. You're going to take one cup of sugar and put it in a large stock pot. You do want a pot with a high profile because we are going to be adding some heavy cream once our caramel is done, and it does have a chance
of sort of bubbling up, so do make sure that it's a nice deep pan. And then you're gonna put
your flame on medium-high.

And at this point, it's gonna look like it's not doing anything, and you're gonna get antsy, and you might tend to walk away. Do not do that, because this
can burn very, very quickly, and there's nothing worse than
the smell of burnt caramel. You have to start all over again. But you'll be encouraged
once you see your sugar start to melt along the side of the pan.

It'll become clear, and then overtime, it'll start to develop this
really beautiful amber color. And just keep taking that
pan and swirling it around. You don't wanna stick
any utensils in there because it'll just
stick to it like cement. So just don't touch it,
just swirl it and move it, and once you get to the
end, and you start to see that it's really a
beautiful caramel color, you might wanna turn
down the flame just a bit because you don't want it to burn, but you do want the rest
of the sugar to dissolve.

And you wanna turn off the flame, and then you're gonna add half a cup of heavy cream or whipping cream. And you're gonna pour that in the pot, and you're gonna watch, it's gonna just rise up and start to bubble. That's okay. Just let it kinda do its
thing, it'll settle down.

And once it does, that's
when you wanna add a quarter teaspoon of the
fleur de sel sea salt. The fleur de sel sea salt is usually sold right next to the salt. It's typically in a smaller container. It's a very fine salt that doesn't have a very strong salty flavor to it.

I know, it sounds kinda weird, salt that doesn't taste like salt, but it's just light, and it's
really great for desserts or sprinkling on top of grilled meats. And into that, we're also gonna add two tablespoons of butter, and this is gonna add a really beautiful, smooth texture to our caramel. And then I also like to add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. And so at this point, our caramel is done, and we just wanna transfer it
into a heat-safe container.

And we're gonna set that side,
we're gonna use that later. And then the second part to this process is we're gonna start to
create our custard base. So in a large mixing bowl, you're going to add five egg yolks, and into that, we're gonna add a third of a cup of corn starch, or corn flour, you may know it, and you're gonna whisk
those two things up together until you have a beautiful
yellow paste on your hands. And then you can just set that aside.

And then the next step is to
create our milk-cream base. Now stick with me, I know this
feels like a lot of steps. You got the caramel, you got the eggs, now you've got the milk, but
it's totally worth the effort. It's really not that hard.

It just takes a little bit
of time, but the results are well worth the
effort, so stick with me! Okay, now we're gonna
take two cups of milk. We're gonna put that in the pan. And one cup of heavy cream. Then you're going to take a vanilla bean, split it down the side, scrape out the seeds, put that in the pot.

And I also like to throw
in the pod as well. And then you're gonna simmer this mixture for about five minutes,
just to allow that vanilla to infuse into the cream
mixture, and you'll start to see the seeds kinda boil up to the top. At that point, you wanna take out a sieve and just strain your milk mixture just to catch all of
those vanilla pod bits. Then we're gonna take this
hot cream-milk mixture and we're gonna add just a
little bit to the egg paste.

And we wanna do that just a little bit so we can whisk it up
and temper those eggs. So tempering just basically means wanting to get those eggs up
to the same temperature as the milk so that they don't scramble. So once you've kinda got that going, then you can go ahead and
slowly add the rest of it. Then we're gonna pour this
mixture into our cleaned-out pot, and then you're gonna start
to whisk it on medium-high.

Once you see it start
to thicken, and it has kind of that pudding consistency
but it's still pourable, you can turn off your
flame and then remove it from the burner because
that burner is still hot, and if you keep the pot on there, that custard is going to continue to cook and you'll end up with
something that gets too thick. So definitely remove it,
and then you wanna add two tablespoons of
butter and whisk that in. Now at this point, this custard is not gonna taste like much. So don't go in there trying
to taste it and be like, "Eh, this doesn't taste like much." Because it's not sweetened.

We have to add our caramel back in. Remember, that is like straight sugar 'cause that is going to
sweeten up this custard and really give it its great flavor. So you're gonna take your caramel, put it into the pudding mixture, and start whisking it. And you'll see, it'll start to develop this beautiful sort of
butterscotchy hue to it.

Then you can pour it into
your ramekins or containers. I like to use these little French tumblers 'cause you can see through
them, which makes it nice, and it just sort of goes
with the French theme. Then we're gonna put these puddings in the fridge for at
least two hours to set up. Now I actually don't like
to cover these puddings because I find that
they start to get a lot of condensation and
moisture at the top of them, so I just leave them as
is, and they kinda make a nice little seal once they start to set.

And then to serve, I like to take a little bit more of that
fleur de sel sea salt and put it on top of the pudding. I know it feels weird,
but it's really good between the sweetness of the pudding, and then you get that little salty, that sweet and salty, it's so good. And then we're gonna add a
dollop of homemade whipped cream. And then just to guild the lily a bit, I do like to add some
toffee bits to the top, but you could also add cinnamon or nutmeg or even some crushed
nuts would be delicious.

And there you have it, a
delicious salted caramel pudding that is so decadent and so delicious. Alright, you guys. I hope you subscribe for
more delicious recipes, and I will see you back here
next week with another one. Until then, bye! (Happy acapella music).