I Wuv You Brunhilda

The first time I heard Brunhilda laying an egg I thought there was a raccoon in the hen house. All the squawking and clucking made me come running over with my emergency poultry first aid kit. Since then, I've learned that the hen with the sleek black plumage is just an operatic layer. Lucky for us, we've been given a few of the fruits of her labor and they are certainly something to sing about. I used her eggs this weekend to make a butterscotch pudding for a banoffee trifle. Our neighbor says she will swap eggs for child-tested and approved recipes. This is part of our Two Block Diet ethos--sharing resources and celebrating our local food culture.

My mom used to make butterscotch pudding and serve it with called fruit in the winter, but as I remember it was most often made with a Jello pudding mix. Making it from scratch is actually really easy and if you serve it with fresh fruit--like bananas, it can be "ab fab". I used a recipe from the blog of David Lebovitz, an American in Paris. By looking at his photo you would think he is a smug basterd, but his writing is funny and interesting, so we'll forgive him for now. I used cereal cream instead of whole milk and although I found the pudding did curdle slightly, it was not enough for me to run it through the food processor as he suggests. I actually used the pudding to make a banoffee trifle, but more on that later. For now, I'll just leave you thinking good thoughts about homemade butterscotch pud.