Warm comforting puddings take me back to the cold wintry Sunday afternoons of my childhood. My mother would always have something going in the oven. Tapioca pudding was a favourite. The soft glassy pearls enrobed in a delicious creamy baked custard, with a slight salty hint from copious amounts of pure butter was hard to resist. Still is for that matter… It was always enjoyed hot, straight out of the oven under the blankets in front of the TV.

I’ve realised Tapioca is sometimes not that easy to find nowadays, so I’ve modified the recipe to use Sago instead. But if you can find Tapioca it’s even better. The only difference between the two is that tapioca is a bigger pearl than sago.

Baked Sago Pudding

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Sago or Tapioca
3/4 cups Sugar
100g salted Butter melted
4 Eggs
Pinch of salt
3 cinnamon sticks
3 cardamom (elachi) pods
1/2 tsp fine cardamom
3 cups milk

Method

Soak the Sago in the milk overnight or at least 3 hours.
Beat eggs, salt and sugar well. Add butter sago and milk mixture and spices.
Mix well and pour into a buttered deep baking dish. The dish must not be too big, approx 20 x 24cm.
Dot the top with slivers of butter and bake at 160˚C for 1 hour until the top is nicely browned. This has to bake low and slow otherwise you may still end up with hard centres in your sago.
Get under your blanky, and enjoy hot with a cuppa.