Egg pudding is a silky, smooth, steamed custard dessert made from sugar, eggs, and milk. It's found in many Asian cuisines, particularly Japanese purin with caramel sauce and Chinese steamed egg pudding.
Our egg pudding recipe will show you how to make this traditional dessert at home. You can enjoy it as it is, with a caramel sauce or even as a bubble tea topping in a boba drink.
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What Is Egg Pudding Made Of?
This silky treat has three key ingredients: milk, sugar, and eggs. Although the ingredients are the same, the sweetness levels and firmness differ between the Chinese and Japanese versions.
The Chinese version is created by steaming eggs with milk and sugar. It has a softer, more delicate consistency. Meanwhile, Japanese purin is always served chilled and topped with a layer of caramel.
Store-bought purin has gelatine for a bouncy texture. However, with our vegetarian-friendly recipe, we'll show you how to change the water-to-milk ratio to make it bouncy without gelatin.
Ingredients
You will need eggs, milk, rock sugar, and water for our Chinese custard egg pudding recipe. The same ingredients are used for Japanese purin and crème caramel.
Eggs help the mixture to set, whilst milk adds the flavour. We recommend choosing full-fat fresh milk for a creamy flavour in your custard pudding.
Rock sugar not only sweetens the dessert but determines its firmness.
If you don't have rock sugar, you can use granulated white sugar instead. Rock sugar has a milder sweetness, which goes well with this soft pudding dessert. You can also choose to use brown sugar if you prefer a toffee-like sweetness added to your edd pudding.
Egg Pudding (Custard Pudding) for Boba
Ingredients
- 4 Eggs medium sized
- 500 ml milk
- 120 g rock sugar or white sugar
- 125 ml water
Cooking Instructions
- Mix rock sugar and water in a saucepan. Boil on low heat, stirring occasionally. Once the sugar has dissolved, switch off the heat and pour in the fresh milk. Set this aside to cool.
- Beat the eggs gently with a whisk or fork before adding to the mixture. Stir well. Strain the egg mixture through a sieve to remove bubbles.
- Once the egg mixture is ready, gently pour it into the moulds or bowls. Use a small spoon to remove any bubbles on the surface. Wrap the bowls tightly with cling wrap or tin foil. Place the bowls into the steamer and steam for 20 minutes. Lift it every few minutes to let steam escape.
- Once the egg pudding has set, remove it from the steamer. Let it cool for at least 10 minutes. Once ready, serve it warm or cold with caramel sauce or in a bubble tea.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and is only a rough estimate.
Cooking Tips
Although it's an easy dessert, there are a few things you should keep in mind to make silky smooth egg pudding.
Making Japanese or Chinese-style egg pudding
Japanese-style pudding tends to be firmer than Chinese steamed egg desserts. So, if you want to make Japanese purin instead, we recommend entirely omitting the water. Alternatively, you can reduce the water in our pudding mixture recipe by half.
How to avoid tiny bubble marks on your steamed egg dessert
First, straining the egg mixture before steaming helps to create a smooth texture. After straining, we can use a small spoon to remove any tiny bubbles.
When steaming, cover the mixture tightly with cling wrap so that water vapour does not drip into the custard, which will cause holes.
The other trick is to avoid bringing the water in the pot to a vigorous boiling point during the steaming. The strong heat from boiling water may cause the pudding to cook rapidly. In turn, this will result in an uneven texture.
To avoid this, we boil the water in a kettle first. Then, we pour the boiled water into the pot for steaming. We set the heat to a medium level to bring the water to a gentle simmer. The steam will continue to be released and help gently cook the pudding.
Too watery or hard texture
To prevent a watery outcome, follow the egg, milk, and water ratios in our recipe list. Anything less or more can cause a watery or hard texture.
How To Make Caramel Sauce
We suggest you do the following if you prefer to drizzle caramel over the treat, like the Japanese Purin version.
Caramel for Japanese pudding (optional):
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 4 tbsps granulated white sugar
- 120 ml (½ cup) water
- 2 tbsps hot water
If you want to make Japanese-style caramel sauce:
- First, coat the insides of the mould with unsalted butter. This will help the pudding unstick and come out of the mould when toppling it upside down when serving.
- Add the sugar and water to a pot. Heat up the pot under medium heat until the sugar has completely dissolved.
- Continue heating under medium heat until the sugar mixture turns yellow and then amber. Once it turns amber, quickly remove the pot from the stove. The amber-coloured caramel will be quite thick in consistency.
- Then, add the tablespoons of hot water to the pot. Make sure to point the pot away from you, as the hot water may vigorously turn into steam when you add it. Stir the caramel until it starts to become slightly thinner.
- Pour the caramel evenly into the moulds and let them cool. It will harden over time.
Then, continue preparing the caramel as per our recipe above. Pour the pudding mixture into the mould over the caramel layer. Once the pudding has been steamed and cooled, use a small knife to scrape the sides of the mould. Then, topple it upside down onto a larger plate or bowl.
How To Enjoy
Egg pudding can be eaten chilled or warm, with or without caramel. In bubble tea shops, you'll sometimes find that they add a layer of egg custard as a popular boba topping choice. The custard sinks into the drink, resulting in a velvety, savoury-sweet flavour.
We find the combination delicious with chewy boba.
Another popular variation is to top egg custard with boba pearls, making a custard boba pudding. If you would like to try this combination, we also have a full guide on how to make boba at home.
Microwave Version
Instead of steaming egg pudding, you could make it using a microwave. You will need the same ingredients as our main recipe.
To make the caramel, microwave the water and sugar mixture in a microwave-safe bowl for 2 minutes until it reaches an amber-brown colour. When the caramel sauce has hardened, pour the custard mixture through a strainer into the bowl. Follow Step 1 and Step 2 of our main recipe to make the raw custard mixture.
Microwave the mixture at 500 watts for about 3 minutes. Then, chill the custard pudding in the fridge. We do this for at least 30 minutes to let it set. When you're ready to eat, flip the bowl upside down onto a plate. The custard should slide out, and the caramel sauce will pour over the cake.
If you cook the sauce separately, microwave it for 2 minutes, checking at a 10-second interval. Once the caramel sauce is partially amber, quickly remove it and add water. Make sure to continue to stir until evenly coloured. The extra water helps spread the caramel over the custard pudding.
History
Crème caramel, invented by the Europeans, is a custard pudding topped with caramel. It is possible that crème caramel inspired the invention of egg pudding.
However, there's more to this as we went down a fascinating rabbit's hole of pudding history. We found out that the Chinese rendition traces back to a grandmother during the Qing dynasty in Guangdong who wanted to use excess milk and add eggs to the dessert later.
The British originally invented puddings from meat in the 15th century. British sailors decided to mix leftover breadcrumbs with flour, lard and egg, creating a custard egg pudding. The French then added their touches. Et voila, crème caramel was born.
Another 16th-century historical reference traces Spanish flan. The Spanish supposedly invented pudding, or flan, after they discovered sugar through trading with the Arabs. Perhaps because of the Age of Sail, the European crème caramel travelled to Asia.
It's difficult to ascertain the true origins of custard pudding. However, we do know the British first brought European food to Japanese shores around 1860. This, in turn, gave rise to cross-cultural influences like purin. Purin is so popular that the Japanese have even created a cartoon character with the same name to celebrate this household favourite.
If you've enjoyed our custard pudding recipe, why not share it on Pinterest? And if you're craving more Asian bubble tea recipes to impress your family and friends, connect with us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks to explore gastronomical delights.
Damien
I was just telling my friend about this dessert i had! Looks easy enough to make!
HY
I prefer the Japanese version (first tried it in Muji Tokyo), however didn't know there was a Chinese version prior to making this! I found the Chinese type to be lighter and more pleasant as a treat after a meal whereas the Japanese one paid well with milk tea. Thanks for the recipe
Alphonse
Very informative. Thanks 🙂