Butterscotch pudding rewards a little know-how: how to choose it, cook it, store it, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 12 recipes to cook with it.

What is butterscotch pudding?

Butterscotch pudding is a cooked custard built on brown sugar and butter rather than chocolate or vanilla. You melt butter into brown sugar and cook it briefly until it smells like caramel.

Then you whisk in milk and egg yolks with a little cornstarch and thicken it on the stove into something silky and deeply caramel-toned.

The flavor that sets it apart is that brief cook on the sugar and butter. That step toasts the sugar just short of true caramel. It is where the "scotch" character comes from: a little salt, a little bitterness, more than plain sweetness.

This page is about the pudding you cook yourself or buy ready-made in a cup, not the instant powder that needs only cold milk.

How to Use It

Eaten cold from the dish with a skin or a dollop of cream, it is a dessert on its own. Its real range, though, is as a building block.

Layered, it becomes the body of a trifle or a parfait, alternating with cake cubes and whipped cream. Spread into a baked shell, it sets up as the filling for a butterscotch cream pie under meringue or cream.

Folded into other things, it carries flavor and moisture. A spoonful loosens a frosting into a soft butterscotch icing, or enriches the apple-and-marshmallow toss in a Carmel Apple Salad.

The same caramel note runs through layered sweets like Apple Crunch Dessert and richer cakes such as Butterscotch Cheesecake and Pineapple Butterscotch Cake, where a butterscotch base ties the dessert together.

Warm, it doubles as a sauce. Loosen it with a little milk and pour it over ice cream or baked apples.

Pairing and What Goes Wrong

Butterscotch leans into apples, bananas, and pears, and into toasted pecans or walnuts. Above all it wants a salt edge. Flaky salt on top, or a pinch in the pot, is what keeps it from being merely sweet. Coffee and a splash of bourbon both flatter it.

The classic failure is grainy or split pudding. The sugar can seize when the heat runs too high, or the egg yolks scramble when the hot milk goes in too fast.

Temper the yolks first by whisking in a ladle of hot liquid before they return to the pot, and cook over medium.

The other miss is a thin pudding that never sets. Cornstarch needs a full bubbling boil for about a minute to thicken fully. Pull it too early and it stays soupy once chilled.

Press plastic wrap onto the surface as it cools if you dislike the skin.

What to Substitute

The honest swap for homemade is the boxed cook-and-serve or instant butterscotch mix made per the package. It is sweeter and softer but reads the same in a layered dessert, and a ready-made pudding cup works for folding into salads and dips.

Vanilla pudding plus a tablespoon of melted butter and a spoon of brown sugar approximates the flavor in a pinch. Caramel pudding or dulce de leche thinned with cream covers most sauce and filling jobs, running a touch deeper and less buttery.

For a from-scratch version with no recipe, cook 2 cups milk with ½ cup brown sugar and 3 tablespoons cornstarch plus a pinch of salt until it boils and thickens, then beat in 2 tablespoons butter and temper in 2 egg yolks.

Buying and Storing

Ready-made butterscotch pudding lives in the refrigerated dairy case in cups or in shelf-stable packs. Cook-and-serve and instant mixes sit dry on the baking aisle. For the truest flavor, cook-and-serve beats instant because it actually heats the sugar.

Homemade pudding keeps in the refrigerator for three to four days, covered tight. It does not freeze well: the starch weeps and turns grainy on thawing, so make it fresh.

If a skin forms and you want it gone, a quick whisk smooths it back in. Always taste cold, since chilling mutes sweetness and you may want more salt than seemed right warm.

Quick facts

In Chinese

奶油布丁

British (UK) term

Butterscotch pudding

en français

pouding au caramel écossais

en español

flan crema

Recipes using butterscotch pudding

There are 12 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 12 recipes