LIKE chicken soup, puddings are the ultimate comfort food. They are childhood memories of cold and wet Sunday afternoons at home. When Mother baked a warm and sticky dessert for tea with leftover bread, eggs, sugar and butter. Just eating that pudding made me feel good. It lifted me up when I was low or dispirited. Which is what comfort foods are meant to do.

Home-made puddings you eat without counting the calories or anything like that, they are just meant to be enjoyed. And they are something most people eat first choice over other desserts and sweets. That�s because you learn from early childhood that puddings are the dessert of the common man. As commonplace as ice-cream and chocolate. And just as comforting.

The Bread and Butter Pudding is the most common of all the puddings made at home. Chefs refer to it as the old B&B. It is also the most popular and easy-to-make pudding. Some people jazz it up with cinnamon and raisins. Or they flavour it with chocolate and add a layer of fruit for effect.

In the US where I come from, puddings are winter foods. Like as in the Christmas pudding that everybody knows and bakes. But in India, puddings would be enjoyed better during the monsoon. Bake one yourself this weekend and see. You don�t need to prepare in great detail for this, all you need are four basic ingredients: eggs, sugar, flour and butter.

It�s amazing, with these ingredients, plus some bread and seasonal fruit, you can bake a cost-effective pudding in no time at all. Most of the ingredients everybody has at home. Take 20 minutes for baking time. Your dessert can be ready in half an hour. Remember that next time you have unexpected guests.

Puddings are easily done in a home kitchen. Once it is baked, though no decoration is required, you can make the pudding interesting by using a vanilla or fruit sauce. Raspberry or mango go well with puddings. And you can add fruits to create a crumble. This is just to add variety to the pudding, not to make it beautiful like, say, a wedding cake!

Puddings can be had hot or cold, though some puddings, such as the classic Christmas plum pudding, for instance, is best had hot and with brandy sauce. And the B&B tastes best when it is a day old... and warmed up! The key to making a good pudding is of course excellent bread. Chefs have taken the B&B places by experimenting with croissants, Danish bread, and the brioche.

The legendary Master Chef Anton Mosimann lightly runs a paint-brush dipped in marmalade on his B&B before baking!

The English are the world�s experts at making any kind of pudding. They have a history of making lovely, hot puddings, the best in the world, especially in the the winter when it�s cold and you need the warming comfort that a hot pudding can provide. They make puddings for all occasions and seasons. Not just the English, but a lot of Commonwealth countries that share their cooking with the English. India is one of them. Maybe you don�t do too many puddings here apart from the B&B, but Indian chefs do a lot of pudding-like desserts that aren�t great to look at... but which people appreciate.

Puddings are usually milk-based, creamy and soft-textured. But there are puddings that don�t even use milk. There is a Sticky Date Pudding that is a sweet, stodgy fruit pudding. And a Chocolate Chestnut Pudding soaked in chocolate sauce. If that sounds too rich, consider the Middle Eastern Mahalabia, a light creamy and textured pudding dusted with cinnamon.

And there�s the Cherry Almond Cobbler with spiced apple which, like so many other British foods, was rediscovered by the late 20th century American palate and imported to India. The English fortunately imparted their culinary secrets to all their colonies.

A kitchen, a bakery, is like a laboratory, and baking is an exact science. You work with eggs, sugar, a little bit of flour and some butter -- four basic ingredients for any pudding, that have to be converted, shaped and moulded to achieve the perfect balance at the right time. It is only through constant juggling and experimenting that one achieves the perfect pudding. But puddings are really simple. All you have to do is assemble the ingredients in the correct manner and proportion, put it in the oven, wait for about 20 minutes and voila! the pudding is served! Click for recipe