Mistakes were made

I saw a recipe for caramel pudding on Smitten Kitchen and thought "this is a thing I can do."  By now I should know that uttering those words almost guarantees failure.

I have made pudding before, many times, from scratch and in various flavors.  How much harder could this one be?  Unfortunately it includes my nemesis caramel - favorite flavor for the boyfriend, potential fire hazard for me.  I pulled the caramel early because I feared burning it, and the result is a slightly thickened product most akin to sweetened condensed milk (which I guess is exactly what this is).  Crazy sweet, but I imagine with a little fresh whipped cream, potentially tasty. 

Check out what I discovered while I was making it - same color as my favorite International Coffee...I think I might be on to something.  (By the way, the pudding did get darker - but nothing like the caramel-colored goodness SK had).

And it looks like my bread's resisting the urge to rise - maybe because it's 18 degrees out? 

On to other failures,


BTW - shout out to E's baby boy, who turned 1 today!  Wish I was there to say Happy Birthday!  Does he like pudding?