This Sweet Corn Pudding with Bird’s Custard Powder is an old time Malaysian favorite. Delicious served as a light dessert or a tea time treat.
Sweet Corn Pudding was one of my favorite childhood desserts. This simple dessert can be prepared in minutes with only five ingredients, most of which are pantry staples. Over here, most people use canned coconut milk. This is very convenient and it is always good to have a couple of cans in the pantry. In Malaysia, coconut milk was always and still is hand squeezed at home from freshly grated coconut. The Veggie Man who came door-to-door in his van always had a supply of grated coconut. Yes, it was most convenient and stay-at-home moms seldom had to leave the house. Even groceries were delivered to the door, usually on a motor bike at no extra charge. However, with the advent of supermarket chains, this personal service is not common place these days but I digress…
Back in Malaysia, we had a lot of goodies from the United Kingdom. I grew up with Smarties, Rowntrees fruit pastilles, Marmite, Garibaldi biscuits, and Jacob’s cream crackers to name a few. In the kitchen, Mom used Bird’s custard powder to make sweet corn pudding. During my trip to the UK last summer, I promised myself that I was going to get me some of that custard powder among other things.
I made this dessert once before in March last year but used Jell-O Cook & Serve custard. It was a little firmer and more jelly-like with a smoother surface. Turned out better than I expected. To go to the post, please click on the picture.
Since Mom does not make this anymore and she never uses any precise measurements in her cooking anyway, I had to “figure” it out for myself. As this was my first try, it came out a little soft but I was still able to mold it. Unmolding the pudding was a little challenging though. I had to place them in the freezer to harden a little before unmolding. It would have been much easier to pour the pudding into a rectangular dish and then cut into pieces after it has set in the refrigerator. That was how Mom did it.
The good thing about using Bird’s custard powder is that you can determine how sweet you like this dessert to be. I only used 3 tablespoons of sugar and it was sweet enough for me. Please adjust according to your taste. I have also adjusted the agar-agar powder to 1 tablespoon instead of 2 teaspoon. To further thicken the mixture, please cook it for approximately 10 minutes. If you are planning to use molds, do coat them lightly with some vegetable oil.
This Sweet Corn Pudding with Bird's Custard Powder is an old time Malaysian favorite. Delicious served as a light dessert or a tea time treat.
(Makes 12 molded pudding)
- 1 cup coconut milk (8oz/250ml)
- 1/3 cup Bird’s custard powder (50g)
- 1 tbsp agar-agar powder
- 3 tbsp sugar (42g)
- 1 can cream style corn (14.75oz/418g)
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Prepare 12 of any kind of small molds about 1½in to 2in in diameter*. Lightly coat mold with vegetable oil.
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Place coconut milk, custard powder, agar-agar powder, and sugar into a medium sized saucepan. Bring to a boil on medium heat stirring constantly until custard and agar-agar powders have dissolved, about 2 minutes.
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Add cream corn and continue stirring for another 10 minutes until mixture thickens and is well combined.
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Remove from heat. Allow mixture to cool slightly before filling the molds.
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Place filled mold in the fridge for at least 2 hours before unmolding.
*Cooked pudding may be poured into a 7-inch x 5-inch (17.5cm x 12.5cm) rectangular dish. To serve, cut into slices after refrigeration.
Enjoy…..and have a wonderful day! 8)
looks great and now I know what it is fun use of birds
How pretty! Custard powder s pretty standard here, though if you can’t make it perhaps you can try and make custard? Although I guess it would be harder to thicken the mixture then. Anyway, I would love to try this!
Just plain custard? My friends in England just mix some of this custard on the stove and eat it with apple pie. I will have to find more ways to use this stuff.
This brings back childhood memories of my mum’s trifle which always had a thick layer of creamy vanilla scented custard made with Bird’s custard powder. I ate it so often, I actually prefer Bird’s to custard made from scratch, even now 😀 Adding sweetcorn only makes it even better!
Vanilla scented custard sounds good to me. Serving it with fruits sounds like a great idea. 🙂
What an interesting dish. I have never had sweetcorn like this before. Although, I am sure that it really works well with the custard because it is sweet. Your recipe looks delicious. Thank you. 🙂
Yes, I remembered this bright pudding very well, I love it very much too! Yours look so pretty in the moulds but cut into diamond shapes also very pretty and nostalgic!
I am so glad to hear that you remember them. I was beginning to wonder if people still make this pudding as I don’t see them on food blogs. Yes, they are pretty cut into diamonds. Also much easier to just pour the pudding into a flat pan. 🙂
Yum!!!
You know my mom always made pudding with custard powder… And it tasted divide always…
I can taste the coconut milk in this luscious pudding…
Drooling!!
We do use quite a lot of coconut milk in our desserts in Malaysia as it is so easily available. Makes the desserts taste really good too. 🙂
What a beautiful treat! I don’t think we have something similar in Japanese sweets, especially coconut milk flavor…. I love your elegant styling in this photos too!
I don’t think coconut is easily available in Japan and so it is hardly used in the cooking. In Malaysia, coconut is easily available and so it is used in many dishes. Thanks for your compliment! 🙂
Hello Biren, you know back in Greece we use Custard powder so much, but I have to admit that your little puddings are adorable!
Have a wonderful weekend my friend!
I’ll have to check out some of those Greek recipes as I have this whole container of custard powder to use up. You have a wonderful weekend too!
These are super cute and look so yummy! I have Bird’s custard powder from our local Wegman store. I should make these.
You can find Bird’s custard powder in your local grocery store? That’s cool! I have not seen it here. I think you do get more European goods in the East Coast. I hope you will give this a try. 🙂
These look wonderful!! I am heading over to check out your jell-o version because you know I like shortcuts. 🙂 I love the molds! 🙂
The molds are sent to me by my friend, Ann of Anncoo Journal all the way from Singapore. I love them too and have used them in many of my jelly recipes. 🙂
These are so pretty and sound fantastic! I’m not familiar with Bird’s custard powder, great to learn about it.
These look indescribably good! I’m a huge fan of sweetened corn so this corn pudding is right up my alley! I’d have to make it in a square dish because I don’t have those beautiful molds, but they sure make a gorgeous corn pudding! Hope you had a great weekend!
Oh yeah, I remember this dessert! Used to eat it a lot when I was a kid! I love it chilled. 😉
I have never used custard powder…but I do adore puddings and this looks wonderful!
My mum used to make these! In fact in was her party favourite for us kids.
Thanks, Biren for the memory jog again.
You are most welcomed, Poh! My mom often made this too. I guess it was easy, tasty, and only required a few ingredients. 🙂
Hi. Thanks for sharing. Have been wanting to do this. May i substitute coconut milk with evaporated milk?
It may taste a little different but it should work.
I would like to ask,making sweet corn custard by using Bird’s brand custard powder,do I still need to add in agar agar powder or agar agar bird brand?? Hope to get reply soon. Thank you
Yes, the agar-agar powder is needed as per my recipe. It is to help the the pudding to set.