I made Awaria's pudding pie to fend off ghosts and secure kisses
In Awaria, you play as Polish technician Ula Usterka in a bid to repair generators while fending off ghosts. She also gives pudding pies to the ghosts in an attempt to placate them and, most importantly, secure kisses, and I think more games should be bold and brash in what they want to do.
It's very gay. I approve.
While the game is free, the artbook you can buy on the side to support the dev comes with Ula Usterka's pudding pie recipe. Here's my dilemma--I'm not writing the recipe here because I think you should support the dev anyway, but I also don't think it's a great recipe and can be improved.
Here's the dough - a shortcrust pastry that you work by hand. Aaaand therein lies my gripe with the recipe because I don't think it's a very good shortcrust recipe. It's difficult to work with, crumbles easily, and there are better shortcrusts out there you can work with and won't give you a headache trying to fit it into the tart containers.
Also, I cut the sugar amount by 50% anyway because I'm stereotypically Asian in the way we don't like too much sweetness.
I noticed, however, the sugar ratio in the crust is a lot more compared to the custard pudding interior; a weird distribution, but worked fine enough. Still, I don't recommend it. I would just google any shortcrust pastry or use Claire Saffitz's pastry recipe instead.
And here's the pudding ingredients: a normal custard with vanilla along with a surprising low amount of sugar. You can follow the game's recipe or use your own custard recipe, it's not going to be a problem.
Bake until the edges start browning. You'll notice I don't have regular tart tins, so I used my Hong Kong egg tart tins instead - they're a lot larger than what the recipe calls for.
And here it is, served with a nice black tea. It's not bad! But it could be better; my friends also made the pudding pie and they struggled far more than I did with the crust. Some of them started adding milk and other ingredients just so they could roll and work it better.
I am, however, going to compliment this dessert in the most Asian way possible by saying, "It's not too sweet."
And if you're Asian, you know--we don't like sugar. If someone eats your dish and says, "Mmm! It's not too sweet!", then that's the highest compliment you could ever receive.
I think you'll know beforehand if you want to make this pudding pie. It's a combination that's hardly ever likely to go wrong: butter crust and custard.
No wonder the ghosts love it.
