4 Levels of Pudding: Amateur to Food Scientist

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Onika and I'm a level 1 chef.

Hi, I'm Beth and I'm a level 2 chef.

Hi, I'm Frank, I'm a chef instructor

at the Institute of Culinary Education

and I've been a chef

[drum roll] since the beginning of time.

[Frank laughing] [upbeat music]

So, today I'm making Banana Pudding.

I'm gonna take instant pudding, cream cheese,

heavy cream, milk, bananas.

Everybody always wants to judge the instant part,

but let me tell you something,

it's gonna be instantly delicious.

Today, I'm gonna make

Chocolate Pudding with Homemade Whipped Cream

and chocolate shavings, all over the top.

Just feels like a big hug.

Chocolate and banana pudding are kind of those ones

that everyone craves it's the gold standard,

but today I am going to make a Coconut Panna Cotta

with a Mango Gelee and a Pandan Foam.

Sounds fancy, right?

[air whooshing]

[musical notes jingling]

[air whooshing]

I'm gonna start by baking a base for the pudding.

You know, you gotta have the baseline, like the drum beat.

This is the drum beat of the pudding.

We're gonna start with this cream cheese.

We're gonna start off at level one, like I am.

[mixer whirring]

So, I put my cocoa powder in this bowl,

my corn starch and just a pinch of salt,

a little bit of salt makes everything taste better.

Yip.

I like to mix all the powdered ingredients together first,

so that there are no lumps.

I'm gonna make the mango gelee.

And a mango gelee is basically mango purée,

with a little bit of sugar in it,

that gets set with gelatin.

We're hydrating the gelatin,

so that it'll melt into a smoother mixture.

The mango gelee is gonna give us a little acidity.

That's gonna kinda counterbalance

the coconut panna cotta and the foam.

We're going to take our condensed milk.

Look at that, it looks like blessings.

[mixer whirring] Oh, look as she,

she's so pretty, hey girl.

Something about this just feels like

I'm doing some good work today.

Now, I have to separate my eggs

and I'm going to combine the sugar and the egg yolks

just on medium high speed.

The sugar's being completely incorporated

with the yolks, now.

[mixer whirring]

Yeah look, you gotta move your hips with it.

I'm gonna add my cocoa powder, corn starch and salt.

Take my gelatin sheets and I'm gonna just stir it in,

until my gelatin melts.

Just to give it a little more brightness,

I'm gonna add some fresh lime juice,

always use fresh juice please,

don't use juice out of a bottle.

Now, you have your instant pudding.

Don't tell 'em about it.

They go like, Oh my gosh, you're cheating.

No, I am not cheating.

I'm using banana cream pudding and French vanilla,

because you know how the French do,

the French make everything a little bit more

like a je ne sais quoi, whatever it is.

A lot of people might think because I'm a chef,

I don't like the mix, or the box pudding.

I don't bash on it at all,

because it's a really good convenient food.

Now, that our base is ready, we're gonna heat the milk.

If you're gonna eat chocolate pudding,

eat chocolate pudding.

Whole milk is the answer.

But who's just adding cold milk? No, no, no, no, no, no.

So now, what's next?

This is marshmallow syrup, but don't tell anybody.

I'm a little, little suspicious of the marshmallow syrup.

They're like, What's in that?.

You'll never know.

[mixer whirring]

You'll never know.

Just a little suspicious.

Now, that the mango has the lime and the gelatine in it,

I'm gonna put it into my glass.

And this measuring cup is gonna make it easy

to get it right down the center and not get it on the sides.

Now, all I have to do with this,

is put it in the refrigerator and let it set.

When this is set fully,

we can put our coconut panna cotta on top.

Now, I'm gonna turn on my mixer

[mixer whirring]

and slowly add the milk The milk,

'cause we wanna make sure that we don't overwhelm it.

You're gonna stir it until it gets nice and thick.

[mixer whirring]

Oh no, no, no!

Oh, we gonna mess up my good outfit.

This process requires patience, but it's so worth it.

To start the panna cotta we're gonna add our cream,

or coconut milk and our sugar to the pot.

I'm making a coconut panna cotta and I chose coconut,

because it's one of my favorite flavors.

When I'm making pudding, that means chocolate pudding.

Banana pudding is way better than chocolate pudding.

Chocolate pudding is the favorite of my husband,

my sons, my grandsons.

You wanna keep your burner on medium heat.

Okay, I can feel it on the bottom, starting to get gloppy

and you're gonna think this is a big mistake.

You want this gloppy stuff, so take it right off the heat

and I'm gonna keep stirring.

Lots of elbow grease.

The cream is hot, I'm gonna shut my heat off.

I'm gonna get my gelatin sheets.

Now, we're gonna slice up our bananas,

like extremely thin,

because you don't want chunks of bananas.

It's banana pudding, you got to put some bananas in it.

[mixer whirring] This is how you trick them

to think it's from scratch.

We're gonna bump it up with lots of flavor.

Cut some of our dark chocolate.

Usually you use an ounce, I always use a little more.

Got our butter, vanilla, a little extra decadence

with our heavy cream.

And then I'm gonna strain it Strain it.

[Frank] in case there's any little bits in there.

Straining the pudding,

makes everything smooth and luscious

and it's just a beautiful way to present it.

I just have an ice bath here and I'm gonna chill it

to about just below body temperature.

Okay, this is the part

where your patience need to kick in.

It's gonna be worth it, take your time.

Okay, this blender done a number on my arms,

but this is going to be amazing.

We're gonna leave the pudding, room-temperature.

Wrap a little plastic wrap,

in refrigerator, In the refrigerator

'till it's set.

To make it namasté and get his Chakras right

and then it's gonna come out and it's gonna show out.

Now, for the toppings.

So, I'm gonna start with my Nilla Wafers.

It's definitely not a banana pudding

without some Nilla Wafers.

I wanna get the prettiest ones.

These are the ones that's going inside the pudding

and a couple of them are gonna get demolished.

Now, I'm gonna make my pandan foam.

Pandan leaf is common in Southeast Asia.

So, we're using leaves?

We're making pudding, right?

It has a very popcorn, or a grassy note to it

and you'll see it used in a lot of desserts.

I'm not an expert on Southeast Asian flavors, but as a chef,

I constantly like to experiment with new ingredients

and this is fairly new to me

and I just think it's wonderful.

We're gonna take the half and half

and the sugar and bring it to a simmer.

I'm gonna make homemade whipped cream,

you could definitely buy whipped cream.

If you wanna make your own whipped cream,

more power to you, I don't have that kind of time.

My grandsons love to lick the beaters

and you can't do that with store-bought whipped cream.

This is where you're gonna take out your aggression.

Take your little hammer.

I'm gonna use these as sprinkles

on top of my whipped cream.

Our half and half and sugar has come to a simmer.

I'm gonna get my pandan leaf

and I'm just gonna kind of cut it into strips.

We're gonna let it steep like a tea for a few minutes.

First, my heavy whipping cream goes into the bowl.

[mixer whirring]

Soon as it gets a little frothy,

I'm gonna put in powdered sugar, vanilla.

While this is steeping, I'm gonna add my lime zest.

You don't wanna keep on rubbing it over the white spot,

you just wanna get the green and that's it, keep moving on.

The pandan leaf has been steeping

for about seven or eight minutes and I'm gonna purée it.

It's gonna give us a nice green color

and it's gonna add to the flavor.

At this point, we're gonna add our xanthan gum.

What the xanthan gum is gonna do is,

it's gonna thicken our mixture.

It's gonna hold those bubbles

and it's not gonna deflate right away.

So now, for our bananas.

You want your bananas really thin.

We strained our pandan and now what we're gonna do,

is we're gonna ice it down.

It's gonna stay nice and bright green,

as long as we ice it down.

I'm gonna put it in this siphon, get it really tight.

You're gonna hear the gas go in.

So, this can go directly in the fridge.

and before we plate, we'll take it out to get our foam.

Fresh, homemade whipped cream takes a second,

absolutely worth it.

I'm gonna do a little young coconut,

but we just wanna peel off all of the husk.

You'll notice on the coconut,

there's kind of three little ridges here.

You take the corner here and you give it a little whack

and then you can get your cleaver in there

and crack it open and scoop this out into the bowl.

And I'm just gonna do a little dice,

same thing with the mango.

So, here are all the toppings for my pudding.

Think we're ready to plate it up.

Now, it's time to build this baby up.

And we start with the chocolate pudding,

nice heaping portion.

Our panna cotta is done and it's really nice and wiggly.

We're gonna start with a little bit of the cream

and then I'm gonna start layering my cookies.

Our homemade whipped cream.

Of course you leave the bowl of whipped cream on the table,

so that once you finish this amount of whipped cream,

you can add more.

Pudding, banana, cookie.

This needs to chill for about four hours,

so I'm gonna go out, conquer the world

and by the time that I'm finished, it's gonna be ready.

I have my pandan foam.

So, I like to use whipped toppings,

because it just takes a dessert to the next level.

We're just gonna put a few little pieces

of our young coconut on top

and then a little bit of our mango.

Some chocolate shavings, right over the top.

And this is my Banana Pudding.

[camera clicking]

And this is my Chocolate Pudding.

[camera clicking]

And this is my Coconut Panna Cotta

with Mango Gelee and Pandan Foam.

[camera clicking]

[upbeat music]

This is the part I've been waiting all day for.

When you're eating this, you have to be sure

you get a little bit of everything in each bite.

You got some cookie, you got pudding, you got the cream.

Delicious. Yeah.

The consistency of the pudding is amazing.

The crunch of the topping just brings it all together.

When I tell you this is amazing,

this is an amazing banana pudding.

The chocolate pudding is smooth, luscious.

The whipped cream is not too sweet.

So, it's a nice balance with the chocolate.

It's heavenly.

Everything really marries well together.

The foam, you kind of get a hint of that in the beginning

and then you get a little that melty coconut and mango.

There are those that would add

all kinds of exotic flavors.

Not for us.

The Domino's like unadulterated chocolate pudding.

You got to have a little fun sometimes

and kind of go out of your comfort zone.

Pudding it so comforting and delicious

with so many options.

Let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs.

[dramatic music]

Onika didn't have to cook her pudding,

because she used a mix of instant pudding bases

combined with milk as the base of her pudding.

Instant puddings are convenient products

that include instance starches,

which are commercially modified starches,

made by cooking cornstarch and water,

then cooking it further on a drum dryer.

The advantage is that you can add instant starches

directly to mixes and they won't form clumps,

when they're hydrated.

I have no idea how pudding sets.

To answer Onika's question,

when the bonds in starch molecules are broken by heat,

or agitation, as in an instant starch,

water enters and combines with the starch fractions

causing a thickening.

This is called gelatinization.

As it cools or rests over time, it forms a solid gel.

Beth's pudding was mainly thickened by egg yolks.

The cornstarch stabilizes the pudding,

this type of thickening requires heat and cooking.

Eggs form gels based on the amino acid sequence

present in the protein chain.

Heat allows the protein chain to unravel

and liquid becomes trapped in this network,

causing increased viscosity.

Calcium from the milk enhances this mechanism.

Frank's panna cotta is coconut milk and heavy cream

thickened with gelatin,

which is an animal based protein

made from the hydrolysis of collagen.

A protein found in connective tissues of hides of animals,

such as hogs.

Perfect panna cotta should be firm with a very slight wobble

ensuring that you haven't added too much gelatin,

so that you don't end up with milky jello.

He added the gelee as a separate layer,

a smart way to add the intense mango flavor

without having to mix it into his panna cotta directly.

It's gonna brighten it up,

it's gonna give us a little bit of sweetness, as well.

[dramatic music]

Onika used a store-bought whipped topping,

which is based on hydrogenated plant oil,

some light cream and corn syrup.

Beth made a hand whipped cream.

Whipped cream is an air in water foam.

Air cells are surrounded by a film of fat droplets,

stabilized by proteins.

It's essential to use very cold cream,

so that the fat lobules will come together.

It takes a second, absolutely worth it.

Frank made a topping by steeping fresh pandan leaves

in a half and half and sugar mixture.

So, we're using leaves?

Okay.

Pandan, or screw pine is a tropical plant

that imparts grassy, floral, nutty and vanilla flavor notes.

Frank used a whipper to turn this mixture into a foam.

The whipper relies on gaseous nitrous oxide

to create tiny bubbles in the liquid under pressure,

when released it resembles airy whipped cream.

He also added xanthan gum, which is a hydrocolloid.

Hydrocolloids are polysaccharides,

or chains of carbohydrates,

that form gels when combined with water.

The final result was a light green velvety topping,

that was perfect with the coconut and mango flavors

in his panna cotta.

No matter how you make it,

pudding is versatile and delicious.

Next time you are making this comforting dessert,

we hope you'll use some of these tips

from our three amazing chefs.

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