Custard vs. Pudding: What’s the Difference?

Custard is a cooked mixture of sweetened milk, cream, and eggs. It's used as the base for many types of desserts, including crème brûlée, crème caramel, crème anglaise, and pastry cream. Eggs serve as the thickening agent in custard and are a key ingredient. The higher the ratio of egg yolks to cream, the thicker the custard.

Pudding is a cooked mixture of milk or cream, sugar, and starch. You can make pudding without eggs, with its thick texture coming from flour or cornstarch. This creamy dessert is ideal for serving on its own in a bowl; sometimes topped with whipped cream and berries. In North America, the word pudding commonly refers to this custard-like dessert.

In the United Kingdom, the term pudding can refer to sweet desserts; it also describes certain sweet and savory foods that you can steam or boil in a dish, cloth, or animal intestine. These types of British comfort foods include Christmas, plum, sponge, and black puddings.

While custard and pudding may share a few similarities, the two desserts are different, particularly when it comes to ingredients and preparation. Here are a few differences between the two:

• Ingredients: Both custards and puddings begin with a base of sweetened cream or milk. The main difference is the ingredient used as a thickening agent. Eggs are an essential ingredient in custard, as they give the dessert its gelatinous texture. Instead of egg proteins, flour or cornstarch are thickeners in puddings. There's some overlap, however—a custard (such as pastry cream) can use a starch for stability, and some pudding recipes may incorporate eggs.
• Texture: A classic custard is heavier and firmer than pudding, retaining its shape when turned out of a mold or ramekin. You can thin some custards, such as crème anglaise, to make a dessert sauce. Pudding is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon without being runny, but you can't form it into a shape.
• Cooking process: You can make pudding on the stovetop by whisking the ingredients frequently over low heat as they thicken. Custard, on the other hand, is more delicate than pudding because of the egg proteins, which coagulate between 150 degrees Fahrenheit and 160 degrees Fahrenheit. To protect custard from too much heat during cooking, make it in a double boiler over gentle heat or in the oven using a water bath. A water bath, also known as a bain-marie, is a shallow baking pan filled with hot water that cradles the dish of custard.

You can use lemon zest, vanilla beans, mint, bananas, spices, and tea to infuse flavor in these desserts. Pudding is usually served on its own, but custard has applications in different desserts, including:

1. 1. Crème brûlée: A baked custard topped with a layer of burnt, caramelized sugar, crème brûlée is a rich dessert that contains egg yolks and heavy cream.
2. 2. Crème caramel: Also known as caramel custard or flan, crème caramel has a glossy layer of caramel sauce, and you can bake the treat in a ramekin. Made with whole eggs, milk, and cream, crème caramel has a lighter taste than crème brûlée.
3. 3. Pot de crème: This simple dessert consists of milk, cream, and egg yolks. Bake pot de crème and flavor it with chocolate or vanilla.
   
4. 4. Crème anglaise: Crème anglaise is a custard sauce. Pour it on pancakes, waffles, fresh fruit, bread pudding, cakes, and fruit crumbles.
5. 5. Pastry cream: Also known as crème pâtisserie, pastry cream is a custard thickened with flour or cornstarch. The starch stabilizes the custard and prevents it from curdling. You can use pastry cream in fruit tarts, pies, cakes, trifles, eclairs, and cream puffs.
6. 6. Frozen custard: This cold dessert is similar to ice cream. However, because of the egg yolks (frozen custard must contain at least 1.4 percent egg yolk), it is denser than ice cream.

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