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Banana pudding is a sweet treat originating from the Southern United States. It typically consists of layered vanilla custard, sliced bananas, and wafers or ladyfingers. The concoction is then topped with either meringue or whipped cream. This dessert became closely associated with the American South after WWII, when numerous banana pudding recipes started to get published in newspapers.
Nowadays, there are many variations of this classic dessert that is often seen at church picnics and family gatherings.
MOST ICONIC Banana Pudding
View moreThis classic American dessert is prepared with caramelized brown sugar that is blended with a creamy mixture of butter, milk, and eggs. When cooked, it transforms into a thick, velvety custard which is traditionally served well-chilled, merely topped with a dollop of whipped cream.
Although not much is known about the origin of this creamy delicacy, the term butterscotch was originally used to refer to the famous English confectionery created in 1817, but today it mostly describes various sauces or custards produced by cooking sugar and butter.
MOST ICONIC Butterscotch Pudding
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Haupia is a traditional Hawaiian dessert made from coconut milk, thickened into a smooth, jelly-like custard using arrowroot starch or cornstarch, and typically served chilled in small, white squares. Simple yet luxurious, haupia is a staple at Hawaiian luaus, family gatherings, and potlucks, offering a cool, creamy bite that perfectly captures the flavors of the islands.
The texture of haupia falls somewhere between firm pudding and soft gelatin, depending on the starch used and the cooking time. It’s lightly sweet, with a clean, tropical flavor driven almost entirely by the natural richness of coconut milk.
While classic haupia is unadorned and stark white, modern variations may layer it over chocolate crusts (as in haupia pie) or combine it with sweet potatoes, lilikoi (passionfruit), or even taro for fusion twists.
Unrecognizable anywhere but in New England, Indian pudding is a traditional sweetened stove-top Thanksgiving dessert that was brought over from the 17-century English colonists in the original form known as hasty pudding. Traditional Indian pudding is a combination of cornmeal, water, molasses, butter, and eggs, along with available spices, fruits, and nuts.
Cornmeal was abundant for the early settlers and made a suitable base, while molasses was used as a sweetener due to the massive amounts of rum being produced at the time. The pudding is slowly cooked over a low flame for the smoothest possible consistency, similar to the way New England kitchen stoves radiated heat long after the cooking was done, and it can be left warm, frozen, fried, or served with a scoop of ice cream.
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View morePersimmon pudding is an American dessert made from the pulp of persimmons. The fruit must be completely ripe to avoid astringency, as unripe persimmons can be very bitter due to their high tannin content. The pudding is not a pudding in the conventional, custard-like sense but is more akin to a moist, dense cake or a steamed pudding.
Its consistency varies from soft and spoonable to a firmer, cake-like texture that can be sliced. The ingredients typically include persimmon pulp, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, which complement the sweet and subtly spiced flavor of the persimmons.
MOST ICONIC Persimmon Pudding
Panocha is a flavorful American pudding that is especially popular in New Mexico and southern Colorado, unsurprisingly so, as the dish has a great Mexican influence. This thick pudding consists of panocha flour (made from sprouted wheat), cane sugar, water, butter, and warming spices such as cinnamon and cloves.
Although panocha used to be baked in empty lard cans in the past, today the mixture is baked in an oven, and the dish is traditionally served well-chilled.
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Champulado is a Chamorro dish made by boiling short-grained or medium-grained rice until it develops a soft texture. It is then combined with milk, sugar, and cocoa powder in order to create a delicious pudding. Champulado can be served warm or cold, and it is derived from the classic Mexican atole-based beverage called champurrado.
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This traditional Guamanian pudding is made with corn (masa harina), sugar, water, and coconut milk in the original version, while cornstarch was added later as a thickening agent. It can be flavored with vanilla or cinnamon. The dessert is traditionally left to cool off, and it is then sliced into squares and served.
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