Homemade Butterscotch Pudding

By Amanda Paa – Updated July 6, 2020

“Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do in order to get inspiration.”
Tori Amos

There are several wonderful, beautiful and honestly written blogs that I habitually read amongst the chatter of the internet. What I love about each of them is how they jog my brain and create conversation within my inner walls. They allow me to travel to places I will likely never get to. And they spur inspiration, which is exactly how this Homemade Butterscotch Pudding came to be.

One of my favorites is The Bojon Gourmet written by Alanna, who has incredible skills when it comes to gluten-free baking, photography, and cooking in general. Looking at her recipe for what looks to be the perfect Gluten-Free Pie Crust, I was dreaming of the glossy rhubarb pie I could make. But alas, Spring has yet to arrive here in Minnesota, so my wandering sweet tooth found her Butterscotch Pudding. Without skipping a beat, I was off to the kitchen.

homemade butterscotch pudding with chocolate shavings

It turned out perfectly buttery and caramelesque, reminding me of my absolute favorite ice cream – local Izzy’s Salted Caramel. As I took a spoonful of the warm, creamy pudding I sank into one of those “close your eyes and escape” moments. The deep brown sugar, sweet cream, and flecks of vanilla bean scattered throughout make for one amazing naturally gluten-free dessert. And yet another perk – it comes together in less than 20 minutes.

I’m thankful for the inspiration Alanna gave me, and I’m also thankful for her dedication to retesting and evolving recipes to get them right, as she talks about with both the pudding (which she tested 9 times!) and pie crust. I’m not sure people know that as recipe developers, we don’t always get things right the first time, which honestly is part of the fun. Plenty of my “great” ideas have become squirrel food, or I attempt to salvage them by transforming them into something else. We may not have a culinary degree or a professional kitchen, but part of our passion lies within the intricacies and science that comes with cooking.

We also enjoy scraping every last bit of something as delicious as this butterscotch heaven, or even the mistakes.

You can find this recipe on The Bojon Gourmet, which I barely adapted. My only changes being:

  • Using soy milk in place of the milk and half & half in place of the cream because that’s what I had on hand. The texture turned out perfect – smooth and creamy, not too thin nor too thick.
  • Garnishing the pudding with shards of top notch 85% dark chocolate, a perfect complement to the buttery, caramel flavor.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week and if you have sources of inspirations, I’d love to hear about them!

Did you make this?

tag @heartbeetkitchen on instagram and hashtag it #heartbeetkitchen

April 23, 2014

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9 comments

  1. Crista

    mmmmmmmmm // I LOVE butterscotch pudding but it took me years to attempt making it at home (darn intimidation!) I can’t even believe how simple it is…. :)

    • Amanda Paa

      way to rock the creamy desserts, girl. xo

  2. Kate

    I’m just getting around to really reading this, and checking out Bojon, and I’m hooked, especially since the first of Alanna’s posts I read was about roasted carrots and ricotta cheese. YES!

    I think I need to make this, using coconut milk. Just because.

    • amandapaa

      Hi Kate! Yes, Alanna’s blog is so great. And I think this pudding would be interesting with coconut milk. Love to hear how it turns out! xo

  3. Stephanie @ Girl Versus Dough

    I love Alanna’s blog! She is such a great source of inspiration. And I’ve never tried Izzy’s ice cream (I KNOW) but any pudding that tastes like ice cream is a pudding I need in my life. :)

    • amandapaa

      You’re quite inspiring too Stephanie ;) And we need to change the fact that you’ve never had Izzy’s Salted Caramel – oh my gosh, so good!

  4. Alanna

    Amanda! Thank you for saying all of those incredibly nice things. I’m speechless. So glad you loved this pudding – it’s one of my all-time favorite recipes. And I’m thrilled to know that this can be made vegan with soy milk – that’s fantastic! I’ll link to your variation in my original post. Yours looks perfect, and I love your photos. All this talk of pie crust and butterscotch pudding and chocolate is giving me naughty ideas (chocolate-bottom butterscotch pudding pie?!)

    • amandapaa

      All true things! I’m so glad I discovered your blog awhile back. And you nailed it with this pudding! It is a “keeper” of a dessert. Oh, and it’s not quite vegan – you’re right in that I did use soy milk but I also used half and half. I think a vegan version with coconut milk would work thought! ;) Cheers!

      • Alanna

        YES coconut milk! I’m all over that! :)