We were out of yogurt and there wasn't enough ice cream for two. What to do? A vanilla pudding might be nice. I can use the agar agar to gel some milk and put fresh fruit on top. I put one cup of milk in a pot on the stove and added half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, 5 teaspoons of sugar and about 1/3 teaspoon agar agar powder. The instructions called for 1/2 tsp agar per cup liquid but I found this produced a grittiness in the finished product. The lesser amount produced a smooth clean gel. In any case simply bring the liquid to a boil, give it a stir to make sure all the agar is dissolved and pout it into molds or dishes. I put the dishes outside to cool but it's such a small amount, only the white at the bottom is gelled, they could have cooled on the counter. As soon as the liquid cools below the melting temperature of agar, it gels. It isn't necessary to wait till it's cool. Once it is set it's good to go.
On top of the gel I put fresh cut fruit and topped it with chocolate sauce. The chocolate sauce was going a bit too far but here's the recipe.
Chocolate Sauce
1 tsp cocoa powder
3 tsp icing sugar
1/2 tsp milk or cream
Stir and add more milk or cream if it's too thick. Pour a small amount over the fruit, unlike the chocolate swimming pool I created, less is more.
The gel was smooth but light, not creamy, which was preferred in this situation. The liquid from the fruit formed a layer over the gel but it ate with the gel just fine. I put too much chocolate, it might have been better with just a dusting of icing sugar. I'll definitely make more gels though, this was simple and fairly fast.
I found agar agar and gelatin at the health food store for considerably less than the grocery store so it's worth shopping around a bit.
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