Peanut Butter Pudding: or, Let's microwave our way through the summer heat

Summer is here whether we like it or not! Because the the air conditioner has enough problems without any cooking, today's recipe only involves a hot stove if you don't feel like microwaving.

Peanut Butter Pudding ⅓ cup sugar, white or brown 4½ tsp cornstarch, or 3 tbsp flour ¼ tsp salt 2 cups milk* ⅓ cup peanut butter (85 grams)† 1 tsp vanilla       To cook in the microwave: In a large microwave-safe bowl, mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt, eliminating all lumps. Stir in the milk, mixing well. Cook in the microwave, stopping and stirring every thirty seconds, until thick. (Mine was ready about when it first started simmering.) Remove from the microwave and add the peanut butter, stirring until it completely mixes in and the pudding is smooth. (If the peanut butter doesn't completely melt and mix in, just microwave it a little bit and then stir again.) Press a sheet of plastic wrap onto the pudding's surface. You want it to make contact with the top of the pudding-- this prevents a skin from forming. Cool until lukewarm, then stir in the vanilla. Transfer the pudding to a storage container (or just leave it in the bowl-- we at A Book of Cookrye don't judge). Press the plastic wrap back onto it, and refrigerate. If the pudding accidentally becomes too thick as it chills overnight, simply stir in more milk, a spoonful at a time, until it is right. If desired, top each serving with chocolate syrup or fruit jelly.       To cook on the stovetop: In the top of a double boiler, mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt, eliminating all lumps. Stir in the milk, mixing well. Place over boiling water and cook until it thickens, stirring often. Add the the peanut butter and stir until the it melts and mixes in, making the pudding completely smooth. (Be sure to use a double boiler. This pudding will want to scorch if you cook it directly on the burner.) Remove from heat, transfer to a storage container, and press a sheet of plastic wrap onto its surface. You want it to make contact with the top of the pudding-- this prevents a skin from forming. Cool until lukewarm, then stir in the vanilla. Press the plastic wrap back onto it, and refrigerate. If the pudding accidentally becomes too thick as it chills overnight, simply stir in more milk, a spoonful at a time, until it is right. If desired, top each serving with chocolate syrup or fruit jelly. * If you don't have fresh milk, you can use evaporated milk or powdered milk. Since this pudding is cooked, you won't know the difference between powdered milk and fresh. † Instead of scraping peanut butter in and out of a measuring cup, I found it easier to put the entire bowl of steaming pudding on the kitchen scale, tare it, and then drop in spoonfuls of peanut butter until it came up to 85 grams. Source: The Betty Feezor Show (November 22, 1976)

This recipe comes to us from Betty Feezor, whose brownie recipe has become a part of my life. (It's the most splattered card in my box.) For those who don't know, Betty Feezor had a cooking-and-homemaking television show from the 1950s to the 1970s in North Carolina. People in the area still fondly remember her today, even though barely any footage remains to remember her by. (Almost all of her shows were broadcast live and unrecorded.) Her TV station even renamed the her former soundstage the Betty Feezor Studio.

Betty presented this recipe on the only episode that has made its way online. I love her polite honesty about home budgeting. As she's spooning the pudding into a serving glass, she says "I think particularly on a Monday, when maybe you had a nice dessert for the weekend but you probably ate it all, and there's none of that left. And you maybe have realized that your grocery money is not going to extend until the end of the week if you don't let up a little bit. So these are ingredients that you probably already have in the house."

Since the temperature has made itself at home in the triple digits, I decided this recipe was meant for the microwave. It contains no eggs, so it can't curdle. (Well, I suppose if you cooked it far too long, but...) And besides, Betty Feezor warned that it will scorch onto the pot if you cook it directly over the burner instead of in a double boiler. With the microwave, our milk won't be right on top of a literal fire and therefore ready to burn onto the pot.

After we failed to make the replacement microwave fit in our kitchen, someone surrendered and changed out the light bulb in the one we already had.

In just a few scorch-free minutes, our pudding was ready to receive its peanut butter. To tell the truth, I don't like to press peanut butter into a measuring cup and then scrape it back out. Instead, I put the bowl of steaming pudding onto the kitchen scale and drop in spoonfuls of peanut butter until it came up to 85 grams, which the nutrition label tells me is the same as one-third cup.

If you think this looks a bit overcooked, it is. But don't worry, it turned out all right with a bit of last-minute repairs-- and yours can, too.

And if you find that you accidentally cooked the pudding until it got too thick, thus making it too gluey and gummy to eat, not all is lost-- even if it looks like this.

Custard should not hold up a spoon.

You only need to stir in more milk, a spoonful or so at a time, until the pudding is right. If your custard seems ruined, just think of what Betty Feezor said earlier in the same episode when discussing a sewing project that went wrong, "So don't despair, there's always a way that you can correct your mistake." 

I'll admit, it doesn't look Instagram-ready. But it doesn't need to. But if you want, you can drizzle a bit of hot fudge sauce on top. I think the extra-dark chocolate sauce overwhelmed the taste of the pudding underneath, but it did wonders for appearance. If you're trying this at home, just get a bottle of chocolate syrup instead. It's what Betty Feezor did.

I really liked that this recipe worked so well in the microwave-- particularly in our ongoing heat wave. As we all know, there are a lot of things you can technically cook in the microwave, but they never come out as good as with an actual stove. But this recipe comes out the same either way. And you get exactly what Betty Feezor promises as the ingredients appear on the screen: a peanut butter pudding.

I also liked that this pudding wasn't excessively sweet. It doesn't need to be. It is definitely a bit humbler than a lot of other things we've featured here, but I liked it enough to make it twice.