Southern-Style Puddings

Puddings are usually thought of as a milk-based flavored dessert, creamy and soft-textured. There are actually many more puddings to explore, some going back to the Native Americans and early Colonial settlers.

The word pudding might be derived from the Old French boudin, "sausage," which is from the Latin "botelinus," since many of the earliest puddings were encased meat mixtures. Dr. Johnson's Dictionary (1755) defines pudding as "a kind of food very variously compounded, but generally made of meal, milk, and eggs."

One of the earliest American versions of a pudding was Indian Pudding, also called "hasty pudding" or "cornmeal mush." It was commonly a mixture of milk, cornmeal, eggs, sugar, and spices with a soft texture and a flavor similar to gingerbread. It was a favorite in both the North and the South, with recipes appearing in some of the earliest cookbooks, but is now rarely found in the South.

Bread pudding is one of the favorites in most Southern regions, and there are thousands of variations from simple cinnamon-spiced with raisins, to versions with chocolate or fruit mixed in or layered.

A local favorite, Woodford Pudding originated in Woodford County, Kentucky over 100 years ago. It is a spongy baked pudding made with blackberry jam and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, topped with a sauce. Ozark pudding apparently originated in the mountains of northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri. It is a simple mixture of apples, nuts, a little flour, sugar and eggs.

Pudding Recipes

Here are several favorites, and a link to the main pudding recipe index pages.

Banana Pudding
Banana Pudding
Woodford Pudding
Banana Pudding II
Banana Rum Custard
Ozark Pudding
Persimmon Pudding
Peach Tapioca
Raisin Pudding
Chocolate Bread Pudding I
Chocolate Bread Pudding II
Ozark Apple Pudding Recipe
Old-Fashioned Rice Pudding
Rice Pudding with Raisins
Apple Pudding Recipe
Ness's Slow Cooker Bread Pudding
Banana Pudding
Doc's Cajun Bread Pudding
Old Fashioned Molasses Bread Pudding
Custard Bread Pudding with Raisins
Bread Pudding with Raisins
Buttered Bread Pudding
Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce
Peach Bread Pudding
Sweet Potato Pudding
Biscuit Pudding
Bread Pudding with Fruit

Dessert Sauce Recipes

Fresh Blueberry Sauce
Spiced Vanilla Sauce
Vanilla Sauce
Hard Sauce
Caramel Sauce Recipe
Butterscotch Sauce
Lemon Sauce
Caramel Sauce
Whiskey Sauce Recipe
Bourbon Sauce Recipe

Pudding Recipes, Main Index
Custard Recipes
Dessert Sauce Recipes
Fruit Crisp Recipes
Cake Recipes
Cobbler Recipes