The sap is up! Spring puddings for your longing

Ironically, just as Jello sometimes reminds me of breasts, the opposite happened when I saw these Japanese breast puddings: I started thinking about spring puddings.

While bread pudding is among the greatest winter desserts and Indian pudding has a definite lock on the autumn, spring is the time for smooth, lightly-sweetened custards, preferably served with berries and mint. As I recently saw fresh berries in my local market, it's quite possible that the Japanese boob custards might have had absolutely nothing to do with my recent craving for spring puddings. At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

While the ultimate spring pudding (and fall pudding, and winter pudding, and summer pudding, and anytime pudding) is creme brulee, it is also really time-consuming to make, and requires a fair knowledge of proper blowtorch usage.