Tapioca Pudding Or How I Failed at Pudding

  I wrote this post a few weeks back, before all the car stuff and what not. I have not had time to really bake or do much other than car shop, and try to get some stuff around the house done.  But we are almost done with it, and we are getting right into Pork Chops birthday bonanza!  I was thinking about cancelling the party,  but the place had been paid for and we were not going to spend much.  So we are going to forge ahead and hope that when he is 30 and rich he will finally buy me that pony I have always wanted.  Or give me a million, either way right?

This is the best picture of the post, be fore warned.

So I have to say that already being in a  low mood, this is not helping.  I think this fail is so sad. And it's not my first fail lately.  Seriously, after those cream cheese wedding mints, and then the wedding cake pops where I had to toss out like 10 pounds of white chocolate I screwed up.  ( Okay really more like 5 pounds, but still that is a lot)  And then this, my most favorite pudding ever!

  I say I screwed it up because it turned out to be really gross.  As in so gross I tossed it all out.  I mean I tried to eat it, I really did.  Like I ate a big bowl the night I made it.  Then after it set in the fridge over night, I tried but I couldn't.  It was gloopy and gross.  So I will totally forgive you if you never want to try anything I make ever again.  But you should, I mean come on, I make cake balls with booze, I have a few free passes for these mistakes right?

Okay I will apologize right now for this comment.  I am sorry.  But "look how big my balls are!"  I know, I  cannot help myself.

  So I will share with you how I made this, and how I think I screwed up.  I will also have some action shots, because I was all "Hubby, take pictures of me doing this!"  And he was all, "you get the messy kitchen in the background."  And I totally took that as him telling me I have a messy house, and I almost threw hot milk on him.  Then I figured he lives here too, so he is really calling himself messy.  And I felt a bit better.

This is milk, in a pot.  That is all.

  So the whole reason I wanted to make this was Pork Chop and I were in a different fancy store, I wanted some Greek yogurt.  And this store is one of the only ones that sells the kind I like.  So as with any store I had to check out the baking isle.  It was not huge but it had a few neat things.  One of them was jumbo tapioca ball thingies. ( I know my knowledge of baking terms is amazing, your welcome.)

This is the mixture after heating for a bit, it got really thick as those tapioca balls are starchy. 

 And I got visions of myself having a huge bowl of tapioca pudding with tapioca balls like the size of the ones you get in bubble tea.  I was so excited!  So I splurged and bough the whole milk it required and got ready to make pudding.

This is the beginning of the end.  It was all down hill from here.

 I think "get ready to make pudding" should be my new code phrase for when I was to "cuddle" with Hubby.  But then again, that kind of sounds gross, so never mind.  Sorry, now that is in your head and you won't be able to look at pudding the same way again will you.

  Sorry.

  So if you can get past that lets make some pudding, and by pudding I mean pudding.  I thought you guys were over that other thing already.

  So to make tapioca pudding you actually have to be smart and do some prep work.  And by prep work I mean you have to soak your balls in water.  (That's what she said!)  Your tapioca balls, jeez people, one pudding comment and you are all in the gutter.

  So you you do this 3-4 hours before you are ready to use them.  The tapioca was white, I don't think I have ever seen raw tapioca before.  But when cooked it was almost sort of see through.  So you measure your tapioca and then cover it in water, I have no idea how much, I filled the bowl and put about 1 inch of water over it.  Then I added a bit more as it soaked.

Tapioca Pudding
Recipe on the Wasco brand tapioca pearl bag

-1/2 cup tapioca pearls
-3 cups whole milk
-1/4 TSP salt
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 TSP vanilla

Soak the pearls in water for 3-4 hours.  Drain the pearls and mix them with the milk and salt in a sauce pan.  Stir on high heat until it boils.  Simmer for 5 minutes on super low, and then slowly mix in the sugar.  Beat the eggs in a bowl and then temper them by whisking in some of the hot milk, and then once tempered return it all to the pot.  Put the pot back over low heat and stir constantly for about 3 minutes, you can cook it longer if you want a thicker pudding.  Cool for 15 minutes then add the vanilla. You can eat it warm, which was not too bad.  Or chill it, which was just gross, so there you go.

What is with my bony looking hands?  Why does my butt have enough padding for a king size bed, but my hands, they look weird.

So here I am tempering the egg yolks.  That means you slowly add your hot mixture to your room temp eggs and start whisking like you have never whisked before.  And you tell your Hubby to stop getting you big gut in the picture.

So you whisk.

And you whisk.

And then you add it all back into the pot.  Because by this time the eggs are not going to curdle and turn into scrambled eggs.

And then you scrap out the bowl.

And then you are going to cook it a few minutes longer.

Then you are left with this, and you sort of want to cry, but you don't because you bought special milk and stuff and you don't want Hubby to be all "you wasted all that milk"  Even though you know he would never say that, or you would make him eat it,  he knows better.

Sigh, so many things went wrong, but at least it was not a total waste.   I got a blog post out of it right?