Dragon's Teeth

That's what Uncle, the creator of this pudding, called it. "You can take a picture of it and use it on your blog," he said. The Spouse said it was indeed a work of art and that I should see it. So off we went after a Thai dinner to behold his creation.

When they said "art", I had assumed Uncle had done some finger painting on it, like he is wont to once in a while. I've seen him make a checkerboard pudding in pink and yellow, draw a star in vanilla yellow amidst a top layer of chocolate. One of his favourite pastimes is to call an ordinary jelly and custard pudding a 'blood and gore' pudding and serve it to people who are so sensitive they cannot bear to see a wobbly entity such as jelly, even one sans the slightest quiver - it's the knowledge that it could have quivered, not that it actually did, that puts them off.

So when I entered the house, I thought I'd see some pudding in fantastic shades of flaming orange and red with pointy motifs around the edges but what I saw was this:

Once I got over the surprise of seeing the strawberry and black grape creation, I could do nothing but photograph it with my mobile camera. The Spouse then extracted his big camera from its case and took just two shots, and this is one of them. I couldn't bring myself to disturb it so Uncle finally took a spoon and a bowl, dug into it and served himself some, after which The Spouse and I followed.

This is actually a rather simple layered pudding put together with various flavours of custard powder, sponge cake, raspberry syrup, milk and sugar. I've never attempted to make it myself but one useful trick that I have picked up from Uncle is what he calls his secret to thick curds (yoghurt) from standard-issue slim milk. He is full of (mock) indignation over my stealing all his secrets so I won't share that with you, though it's not really rocket science - it's just that when I was all green and younger and a cook with little experience, it seemed like a big deal to me, but it was common sense, really!

Dessert Fruit