Caramel Milk Pudding (using Agar Agar)

Four small 100ml-bottles of creamy milk pudding with caramel base - just nice for a family of four members. No egg nor gelatine involved in the recipe, only a small quantity of agar agar strips. Very easy to prepare, but need to keep overnight for the caramel to fully dissolve.

Yield: 4x100ml bottles of milk pudding
I saved the pudding bottles after finishing the caramel puddings bought from BreadTalk 😊

Ingredients

Caramel
30g raw cane/white sugar
9g hot water

To be added later
9~12g hot water

Milk pudding
2g agar agar strips soaked to 8~10g *
150g  water
25g raw cane sugar
200g milk, room temperature
25g whipping cream, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optional

Some hot water

* as agar agar strips are very light weight to measure, the soaked agar agar would vary in weight from 6 to 10g. For an 8g soaked agar agar, the pudding will be softer and silkier. Try not to exceed 10g of soaked agar agar, or the pudding would be harder.

Directions

1. Add 30g of raw cane/white sugar and 9g of hot water into a heat-resistant cup. Do not stir the content, just swirl the cup to wet the sugar.

Partially cover the cup and heat over low temperature till the sugar bubbles and darkens in colour. Be careful not to over-heat the sugar or it will become bitter. Once you smell the distinctive aroma of the caramel, keep a close eye over the caramel.

Use a long handle spoon to add about 2 to 3 teaspoon of hot water to the hot caramel. Add the hot water from the side of the cup to minimise the splattering. Add in several small quatities.

Swirl the cup to mix.

Before adding the hot caramel into the bottles, warm up the bottles by washing them with some hot water. Drain away the hot water before adding the hot caramel. This is to slow down the hardening process of the caramel, so the caramel can flow at the base of the bottles.

Pour the hot caramel into the 4 warm pudding bottles.

Let them set aside to cool down,

For cleaning the solidified caramel from the metal cup, just pour some hot water into it and let it stands for about 5 to 10 minutes to slowly dissolve the hardened caramel.

2. Soak agar agar strips for about 15 to 20 minutes. You should get about 6 to 10g of soaked agar agar. Try to keep the soaked agar agar weight between 8 to 10g to get a good texture pudding.

3. Let the cold milk and whipping cream returns to room temperature before use.

4. Bring the 150g of water into light boil before adding soaked agar agar to it.

Cover and wait for the content to boil.

When all the agar agar has dissolved, you should see a smooth coating over the stirring spoon.

Add in the 25g of raw cane sugar.

After the sugar has dissolved, pour in the milk,

and whipping cream.

Cover and let the content heat up for about 5 minutes at low heat.

5. Pour the content into a measuring jar. If the volume falls below 375ml, add hot water to reach 375ml. This is to compensate for the water lose during heating. You may add the vanilla extract if you're adding.

6. Pour the hot content to the 4 pudding bottles.

Cover with lids and let the pudding cool down to room temperature (about 2 hours).

7. Refrigerate overnight for better result as the caramel layer takes time to dissolve in cool environment.

8. Enjoy it cold 😋