Amish Vanilla Cornstarch Pudding Recipe

Amish Vanilla Cornstarch Pudding

I grew up eating homemade vanilla cornstarch pudding all the time.

Whether it was a noon meal at a friend's house after Sunday School, supper with the youth group, a family holiday meal, or a wedding dinner, this Amish vanilla cornstarch pudding was a regular dessert dish.

We mostly had cake and cornstarch pudding instead of cake and ice cream. And I think the reason we had homemade pudding all the time is that most of the people in our church were dairy farmers. We had a giant bulk tank full of farm-fresh milk at our disposal every day.

The milk was considered free to use, and this cornstarch pudding recipe is extremely easy to make. It is delicious on its own or served with cake, pie, etc.

We always had plenty of cream too, so we could have made ice cream as well. But ice cream takes longer to make, and it is best served as soon as it is finished churning.

We did make homemade ice cream frequently too, but more often it was for a delicious family treat after a long day of work.

Amish homemade vanilla pudding, however, can be made a day or two in advance. And it is a great addition to your company dessert table.

Creamy Homemade Pudding for Sunday Dinner

Our church had Sunday School every other Sunday. On our church Sunday everyone stayed for lunch, and we always had the same type of meal.

But after Sunday School the hosts usually invited the youth group and only a few close friends to stay for lunch. And we had a big cooked meal of meat and potatoes, etc.

Friends that were invited to stay often offered to bring a cake or some other dessert along for the meal. And a lot of times we had cake, old-fashioned cornstarch pudding, and fruit salad for dessert.

Homemade Vanilla Pudding from scratch

You can also make this cornstarch pudding to use in other recipes. A lot of delicious desserts ask for instant pudding, which is so quick and easy to make.

But what if you wanted to make something and you don't have instant pudding in your pantry? You could make your own pudding to use.

And also, the taste of this vintage cornstarch pudding is better than instant pudding.

Our youth group ate a lot of meals together, and sometimes one person would plan the meal and ask everyone to bring a dish. One dessert we had a lot was homemade éclair cake. It has several layers of pudding with graham crackers.

Sometimes we'd have several dishes of the same dessert made by different people. And one family always used homemade pudding for their éclair instead of instant pudding. Guess which dish always got empty first? You guessed it, everyone liked the one with the homemade pudding the best.

Easy Cornstarch Pudding Recipe

This homemade pudding recipe uses whole eggs, so there is no need to separate the whites. And it is seriously so easy to make.

Pour one gallon of milk into a large pot, and sprinkle sugar and salt on top. Do not stir.

Place on the stovetop over medium-low heat until it is ready to boil. This may take about twenty to twenty-five minutes. But DO NOT stir the milk until it's at the boiling point.

It won't burn if you sprinkled the sugar and top and don't stir.

Meanwhile, whisk your eggs and cornstarch, add 1 cup of milk, and whisk until creamy.

Mix gelatin with cold water and set aside.

When your milk starts getting hot, you want to keep your eye on it. Boiling milk will rise and run over, making a huge mess. You want to catch your milk when it is just starting to rise, so you know it is at the boiling point.

When your milk begins to rise, turn off the burner and slowly pour in your cornstarch/egg mixture, whisking as you are pouring.

Then take your pot off of the burner and add the gelatin mixture, butter, and vanilla, whisking until the gelatin is melted and your pudding is creamy-looking.

Cool. As it cools it will develop a skin on the top, which you can pull off and eat before stirring again (shh.. don't tell anyone that I like to do this 🙂 because it's so yummy! lol).

Or, you can cover your hot pudding with plastic wrap sitting against the top of the pudding so it doesn't develop a skin.

Once your pudding is chilled, you can add cool whip or homemade whipped cream to make it creamier.

This makes a big pot of pudding. You can halve the recipe if you don't want a big batch.

The Best Homemade Pudding

Yay! You did it. I hope you made some of the best homemade vanilla pudding. Let me know in the comments below.

This old-fashioned cornstarch pudding is so delicious served with cake, pie, cookies, graham crackers, etc., or used in recipes.

More Amish recipes...

Vanilla Crumb Pie

Flaky Amish pie crust

Amish wet-bottom shoofly pie recipe

Shoofly cake recipe

Items you may need:

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