I really love hard sauce

But I'm not so sure about Indian Pudding. Maida says that people who were brought up on Indian Pudding, or even those who have eaten it for the first time, can never get enough. I'm pretty sure I can get enough.

It was very interesting to make though. It was kind of like making grits or oatmeal. You scald some milk, pour it into a milk/cornmeal mash, and then cook it on the stove. Maida said to cook it for 20 minutes, but I stopped after 10, because it was already getting really thick. And even though I was stirring like crazy, the cornmeal/milk stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan and made it so I had to scrub the pan for about 20 minutes with steel wool when I was done. Grrrr. After all that stirring, the cornpone looked like this:

And then you add a bunch of stuff to it like an entire bottle of expensive maple syrup and a huge handful of hideous raisins, who lurk horribly in the depths of the Indian Pudding like little dead eyeballs.

Then I had to figure out which baking pan to use for baking. I buttered and decided against 2 pans before I decided on a silicone cake pan. I'm still not happy with that choice of a pan. But it couldn't be too large or too deep.

After scraping this cornmeal mush mixture into the pan, then you pour scalded milk carefully all over the top of the mixture. This forms a "crust" on top of the pudding which is actually pretty tasty. But it is kind of pain to make, because if you try to pour the milk, it just sinks into the mush. You have to use a spoon and carefully pour it over the pudding so the milk just rests on the top. When I was done with this laborious process, the pudding looked like this:

Not very appetizing looking.

And then the most fun part of this recipe. It goes in the oven for THREE HOURS! Nothing bakes for three hours except maybe turkey.

During that three hours, I had time to: 1) work out -- including weights, calisthenics, and a series of 10-second sprints closely monitored by my coach, Cassandra; 2) eat breakfast; 3) take a shower and get dressed; 4) encourage Sam and Cassandra to get dressed and eat; and 5) leave for the mall. Wait -- it was STILL in the oven when I left for the mall. I just asked Pete nicely to take the pudding out when the timer went off -- which was about an hour after I left for the mall. At that point, we had already been through Macy's and were trying unsuccessfully to go to Limited Too (which apparently had gone out of business.)

When I came home, the pudding looked like the picture at the top of this post. Everybody wanted to try some, but we needed to eat something healthy first.

When it was finally time to dig into the pudding, I realized to my delight that this is supposed to be eaten with hard sauce. I love hard sauce! It makes everything taste better. So I whipped up a batch of hard sauce, and we spooned up the pudding:

I don't think I can really describe this. Maida says it is "soft, creamy, cozy, a delicate flavor, a heavenly texture." It is soft. I guess it's creamy. I don't think I would describe the texture as heavenly though. I guess the closest thing I can compare this to is bread pudding, except bread pudding is more firm.

Maddy liked it. I thought it was ok. I hated the raisins in it. It reminded me of the delicious rice pudding my mom made that she ruined with raisins. We have leftovers. Any "people who were brought up on Indian Pudding" out there? I hear you can "never get enough." We have had enough.

Except for the hard sauce. I'm not giving that away.