I've only had floating islands in French restaurants and thought they'd be hard to make. Your reciped sounds very easy @Patricia Colwell Consulting. Thank you!

I have made this recipe quite often, with and without walnuts, sometimes replacing the walnuts with apple.

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/maple-walnut-bread-pudding-recipe

I use this maple syrup:

https://www.whiskeyhollowmaple.com/product-page/whiskey-barrel-aged-maple-syrup

When my sister was ill she loved coke slushies and banana flavored drinks and puddings.

I would make her vanilla milkshakes and add a fresh banana and I made her bread pudding with banana bread. I toasted the banana bread and used about 1/2 the sugar and liquid that you would use in regular bread pudding because it is already pretty sweet and moist. Sorry I didn't write down any amounts, just made it with leftover banana bread and guesstimated the volumes.

Kendrah, try checking smittenkitchen.com. I’ve had a chocolate pudding from her that was very good. Since your mom doesn’t want chocolate, maybe see what else is there. Also, check what all Ina Garten might have. Her pumpkin mousse is pretty tasty!

ETA - Would lemon or butterscotch appeal? I have several books from Lori Longbotham who’s a good source. I haven’t tried these but took some photos of pages.

Also including this from Smitten Kitchen…FWIW.

https://smittenkitchen.com/?s=Pudding

I saw and saved this one from the NY Times. It was too much to do the day of my St. Patrick's dinner, but it looked good...maybe I'll try it for another party.

Baked Lemon Pudding

Love this rice pudding, with or without added raisins.

Simmer 1/3 c rice in 1 1/2 c water in covered pan for about 25 minutes. Mix 1/3 c sugar, 1 t corn starch and 1/4 t salt. Add sugar mixture and 1 1/3 c milk to rice. Boil for one minute. Add 1 T butter and 1/2 t vanilla. Remove one cup of rice mixture and slowly stir into two beaten egg yolks. Stir egg mixture back into the pan and heat until just comes to a boil. Add some raisins if you like . Pour pudding into a bowl and sprinkle cinnamon on top. Refrigerate until set.

Oops…forgot to add : stir constantly while cooking, but you probably knew that.

These are all great sounding recipes. Thank you!

@sealavender - I don't subscribe to the Times so can't see the recipe. Any chance you can screen shot it and post?

@flopsycat1 - The rice pudding recipes I have been reading call for so much cream - like 4-5 cups of it. I like that your recipe only calls for 1/3 c of milk. But, it sounds like it wouldn't make very much. How many servings is it?

I made bread pudding with babka a few weeks ago. Why not with banana bread? Sounds excellent. When I traveled to Costa Rico 20 years ago with a girl friend, we woke to fresh banana bread every morning. The woman who made it soaked the mashed bananas overnight in strong coffee. Heavenly. Perhaps I will make bread pudding with banana bread and some coffee in the custard.

For any bread pudding mixture, I stack various kinds of bread layered between with doo-dads - raisins, chips, brandy soaked dried cherries. For savory bread pudding I layer in sauteed veggies.

Then pour on a mixture of whisked - 4 eggs, 2 cups of milk, and a half cup of sugar. Then add various flavorings. For savory I omit sugar, add some salt and herbs.

And, we resurrected my great great grandma's grapenut flakes pudding. A pudding with folded egg whites that bakes in the oven. It has a cakey, gold top. Heavenly.

If your mom enjoys a bread pudding, I wonder if she would enjoy a clafoutis?

She loves butterscotch.

Yes, clafoutis is a great suggestion.

Kendrah- It’s 1 1/3 c milk, not 1/3. It makes about four custard cup size servings, not a lot, but enough for the two of us. It was the only thing my father would ask for when he was in the hospital.

Kendrah, try this gift link:

Attempt #2 lemon pudding

Thanks for the link @sealavender. This is the same as my great great grandmother's grapenut flakes recipe - omit the lemon juice and zest. Add grapenut flakes and vanilla to sugar/egg mixture before folding in the whites. It is a fantastic recipe and I assume this lemon one will be too.

Cheesecake is another comfort food that works and has a lot of calories I make mine with lemon curd. Lemon pudding cakes. Creme Brulee is just fancy custard. A lot depends on how well your mother is tolerating fat. My mom lived with me for her last 4 years so I made alot of food that was calorie dense for here

Don't forget a good old fashioned tapioca pudding.

I have been seeing a lot of videos for "puddings" made with cottage cheese and ones with chia seeds that look pretty easy to make. I have had the cottage cheese based ice cream and it was delicious!

John mentioned Lemon Pudding Cake. This was part of an email from thekitchn.com yesterday.

https://www.thekitchn.com/lemon-pudding-cake-recipe-review-23716894

How could I forget about tapioca? We love it!

My grandma’s neighbor made terrible tapioca for us when I was a kid. Our family joked about how horrible it was. After she died, we all heard the front door open and close during the night. We always joked it was Mrs. Herbertson coming to haunt us because we made fun of her tapioca pudding.

My mom packed can of it in my school lunch and kids made fun of me for eating fish eyes.

Tapioca is on the pudding menu for sure!

Hope your mom is doing well.You are a great daughter? Have you tried basque cheesecake? It s my favorite. https://www.recipetineats.com/basque-cheesecake/

My mom is into bananas right now. Does anyone have a banana custard recipe. Not just vanilla custard layered with bananas, but bananas baked into the custard.

This weekend, I ended up making this butterscotch creams recipe from Food 52. https://food52.com/recipes/77165-madeleine-kamman-s-butterscotch-creams

I made it with half and half instead of cream so it wouldn't be as rich. The texture was out of this world and it was so easy to make.