Free lactose pudding with apple and agave syrup

 

This recipe is suitable for those suffering from lactose intolerance or those who have problems with sugar. I will give equivalence regarding sugar to the agave syrup if you want to use sugar anyway. We need to explain the recipe before you undertake it.

First : 

lactose-free milk should only be taken by people who lack the enzyme lactase and therefore are intolerant of conventional milk. Lactose is the "sugar" of the milk, to put it simply the lactase enzyme is the one which accelerates the digestion of it. Intolerant people are those who either have never had such an enzyme or have lost it for some reason. One of the possible reasons to lose the lactase enzyme, a fact that occurs naturally to much of the Humanity who do not consume milk more than in its infancy, is to stop taking dairy products for long periods of time. There is therefore a danger that if we consume milk without lactose because is trendy or wrongly thinking that it will facilitate the digestion, we would become really in intolerant to it.

The agave syrup is less sweet than sugar and contributes less calories, which is not to say that there's no calories. This means that this a low-calorie recipe, but not a free-calorie recipe.

The agave is less sweet than sugar, but lactose-free milk is sweeter than normal milk, so the sweetness is balanced. The addition of apple's fructose provides extra sweetness just to settle the matter.

Another problem is given by the liquid character of agave syrup. To compensate for this effect we will increase the amount of bread in the pudding so it absorbs excess moisture.

INGREDIENTS (4 people):

• Half a liter (5 cups) of milk without lactose (if you want to use regular milk, it's the same amount)
• 2 apples 
• 7 slices of French bread
• 100 grams (3.5 oz)  of agave syrup (125 grams / 4.4 oz  if you employ conventional milk)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cinnamon stick
• the skin of a lemon
• White flour

First we boil the milk with the cinnamon stick and lemon peel without the white part that would give a bitter taste. When the milk begins to rise retire the pot from fire, removing the cinnamon and lemon.

Immediately add slices of bread squashing them using the fork. The resulting dough should be left with little or no liquid.

Then add the agave syrup and two eggs. Stir well.  You will see that with the addition of both eggs and agave syrup the dough is now rather liquid, which is already correct.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C ( 374 F).

Peel the apples and cut into cubes to add to the dough, neither crushed. If you do not want the fruit pieces will sink to the bottom is best to flour its surface. Pour batter into a silicone mold or aluminum - the later buttered and floured - and you can take it to the oven.

Enter the mold for half an hour. The pudding will rise and curdle, so choose a mold that will allow the dough to rise without overflowing.

The pudding is done when nailing a toothpick in the center it comes out dry. Remove from oven and let cool. As it does not contain yeast, it will lower volume which is normal. Once at room temperatura, we introduce in the refrigerator. After a few hours you are ready to eat it.

A very tasty pudding that anyone will notice that was made without sugar or milk conventional except for the fact that it is a darker color due to the use of agave.