A lot of my ‘experiments’ in the kitchen start with the phrase “I was SURE I had…”. In this case, it was brown sugar. Light brown sugar to be exact.
Because my kitchen pantry has been stuffed to the point of spilling out when the door is opened, a number of my large bags of baking staples have been hung on hooks in the upstairs freezer ‘nook’ or stored in the basement on a set of wooden shelves that also hold my extra jars of coffee, spaghetti sauce, lentils, split peas etc. And I was SURE I had run across a bag of light brown sugar when I was doing a frantic search in the basement for baking utensils that I rarely use. They ended up in boxes. All unlabelled, of course.
I looked. And looked again. And then I looked one last time … before the cleaned up title of this post was uttered.
I wanted to make butterscotch pudding. Even though dark brown sugar was called for in my recipe, I’ve used light brown sugar, in the past. Since I didn’t think there was enough left in my tub for even a half batch, I didn’t bother trying to measure it out.
Luckily I DID have alternatives.
Like a bag of turbinado sugar and a cone of jaggery sugar. Both are ‘raw’ sugars and between the colour and deeper flavour, a nice change of pace from ordinary granulated sugar. I was too lazy to dig out my grater and start grating the jaggery sugar so I just scooped up some of the coarse granules of the turbinado into my measuring cup.
And, because I’m frugal, I poured some hot milk into the bottle of vanilla bean extract I’d set aside before cleaning it out. Because there were so many lovely vanilla seeds in there that hadn’t poured out when I emptied out the last dregs of my home made vanilla extract. (NOTE: I’m making another batch before I use up the last of what I’ve got now.)
Cooking is Fun ... Really!! 
Sounds like me, “I was sure, I had…” It usually turns out in the end.
Sometimes the result is even better. (Sometimes.) 🙂
I love butterscotch pudding and can’t remember the last time I made it!! Love the tip about getting every bit of goodness out of that vanilla bean bottle!
It’s amazing how much flavour there’s still left in the seeds after sitting in the bottom of that bottle of extract for 2 yrs. I can hardly wait to decant this year’s batch (1 month is the minimum recommended steeping time) when I finish what I’ve got. It’s time to check out Costco for more of those plump Bourbon vanilla beans. 🙂
I hear the prices have gone through the roof!! But I think it’s probably still cheaper and better quality than buying tiny bottles at the grocery store.
The 2 bottles I made lasted 2 yrs so I got my money’s worth on those vanilla bean pods.
I remember when you made them, lol!! 🙂 You sure did!
I made them with rye whiskey from my dad’s liquor stash … free for me.
This batch is being made with alcohol my dad made from fermented fruit from his garden. I hoped there was more but my nephew said the carboys were all empty. 😦
That is so cool!!
That happens to me all the time, in fact just the other day. I knew I had bought a certain pasta but I never could find it. Used a different shape and liked it better. 😀 Your pudding looks great, I love butterscotch.
I bet it happens to many of us. 🙂
OMG that has happened to me so often! Once in a while, I have to run out to buy what I thought I had because I’d already started! I keep a few plastic bins in the basement pantry each with specific contents, one is sugar, the other is flour, rice etc. So nothing gets lost in the depths of the pantry.
The 2 months I have spent emptying out my pantry and consolidating items from different areas will, hopefully, reduce those happenings.
PS: I’m actually getting nervous cause I can see all the way to the back of my shelves. 🙂