Fruit Salad with Mock Custard

I have another easy salad for the last day of this week’s blogging marathon. This is a sweet salad with fruits and custard dressing. I was going to take the easy way and make instant 2 minute custard pudding for this salad. I changed my mind in the last minute and made a mock custard with corn starch. I ran out of custard powder and had to make this mock custard instead.

Though cornstarch is a good substitute for custard powder, I prefer custard prepared with custard powder. For the salad I used fruits of my choice and skipped banana altogether, though it is a must in Indian fruit salads.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Milk
• 2 tbsp. Corn Starch
• 4 tbsp. Sugar
• ½ tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 2 scoops, approximately ½ cup Mango Icecream
• 1 small Red Apple, sliced or chopped
• ¼ cup Blueberries
• 1 (8 oz.) can Pineapple Chunks
• ½ can (11 oz. can) Mandarin Orange Segments

Preparation:

• Bring 1 ¾ cups of milk to a boil in a saucepan, stirring it in between.
• While the milk comes to a boil, mix cornstarch with remaining ¼ cup of milk to a smooth paste. Make sure there aren’t any lumps.
• Once milk comes to a boil, reduce the flame or turn off the heat. Add cornstarch paste to boiling milk and stir constantly.
• Turn on the heat, stirring constantly bring milk to a boil. Reduce the flame to medium and let the milk mixture boil for 2-3 minutes or until it thickens to desired consistency. Keep stirring constantly while the milk / custard is boiling.
• Add vanilla extract and mix.
• Turn off the heat, sprinkle sugar over the custard and let it cool. Do not stir the sugar. Sugar will melt over hot custard.
• Once the custard cools, mix well and refrigerate until ready to use.
• To serve, cut apples into thin wedges, and mix rest of the fruits in a bowl. I usually add a few drops of lime juice to prevent apple discoloration.
• Mix ice-cream with prepared custard. Addition of ice-cream enhances the flavor of the custard depending on the ice-cream flavor.
• Add fruits to custard, mix and serve.

Note:

• Banana is a must in Indian fruit salad and did not use as I do not like bananas.
• This salad is flexible and add fruits of one’s choice.
• Jello instant vanilla pudding mix can be used instead of mock custard.
• If using custard powder that is available in Indian stores, follow the instructions on the back of the box for custard preparation.