Proof in the Pudding – Loralee Lewis

Ladies, let’s admit it. Sometimes we make life harder than it has to be. Am I right or am I right? Take me, for example. This week, in an effort to make my Shower with Love the BEST employee baby shower EVER (photos soon to follow), I embarked on one too many homemade desserts from scratch. The day before the shower, I had brownie pops, red velvet cupcakes, white sour cream cupcakes, and brownie bites all in made, half-made, and batter-form lining my kitchen. Needless to say, by the time I was finished baking one batch of everything, I was so exhausted I decided to scratch the whole thing and go buy the bulk of the food from Costco. In the end, I added small homemade touches to the store bought brownie bites and other desserts and I believe they turned out just as fabulous than if I had made them myself from scratch. Okay, maybe even better.

The lesson being that sometimes you don’t need to give a million dollar effort (or spend a million dollars) to get a million dollar product.

These pudding desserts prove the same point. My mother, along with a few other women, were asked to make desserts for a large crowd this week. Instead of slaving over personal crème brûlée or mini cheesecakes, my mom went with pudding. “Pudding?!” I said. “You are going to make pudding? The kind from a box? mm.” Pudding didn’t seem glamarous or fabulous to me. And yet, she proved me wrong. I guess there is a reason I call her Sandra Anderson Living.

Using tiny taster cups (2″ X 3″), she filled each 2/3 the way with vanilla and chocolate pudding (the box kind!) enhanced only by replacing the milk required with half and half instead to give it a more creamy taste. She then piped on pretty puffs of Dream Whip rather than regular homemade whipped cream. (Dream Whip stays stiff at normal room temperature for a much longer period of time than real whipped cream or Cool Whip and she knew they would be sitting out on the dessert table for a fair amount of time before serving.) She then finished them off with a sprinkle of coconut and chocolate shavings. Needless to say, the guests went nuts over them.

So easy, so fabulous, and so affordable. I think I’m going to try making them myself, the next time I am trying to plan the best baby shower EVER.

Blog to you soon,