From the Pantry Bookshelf
Would you like something soft to spoon beside a slice of pie, or a dessert that you can turn out onto a plate? Start with that choice before reaching for a packet of powder.
Vla and a set pudding can share a flavour and still do different jobs at the table. A softer dessert can flow around fruit or settle into a bowl; a moulded pudding needs enough structure to keep its shape. The useful question is how you want to serve it.
Begin with the spoon or the plate
For this comparison, think of vla as the softer, spoonable choice. Choose the consistency you want to eat: something that pours easily beside cake, or something thicker to enjoy from a small bowl.
By set pudding, we mean a dessert made to firm up, particularly one intended to come out of a mould. That takes a different preparation from a flowing custard. The word "pudding" covers many desserts, so the name on its own is not a promise that a product will turn out neatly.
Imagine the finished serving before you shop. If it needs to stand on a plate, look specifically for instructions that produce that result.
A distinction from the Dutch bookshelf
The 1984 printing of Het Nieuwe Haagse Kookboek makes this difference unusually clear. Its dessert chapter includes a table showing different thickening levels for vla and pudding made with starch. The pudding entry uses more starch for the same amount of milk.
The useful lesson is the relationship between the ingredients and the intended finish. A softer mixture and a firm pudding are different targets, even when the starting ingredients look familiar.
Later, the book describes a cornflour pudding that cools in a mould before being turned out. Its vla recipes are served in a bowl, glasses or small dishes. These examples give us a practical way to choose between two dessert textures without treating a packet name as the whole answer.
Custard powder is an ingredient, vla is a finished dessert
Buying custard powder gives you an ingredient to prepare. Buying a ready-made dessert gives you a finished product with its own intended consistency. They belong at different stages of the kitchen job.
With a powder, check the instructions for the liquid, any other additions, heating and cooling. If the packet offers separate directions for a sauce, vla or a firmer pudding, choose the version that matches your serving plan.
Koopmans Custard is one example of a powder rather than a finished dessert. Its listed ingredients include maize starch, salt, colours and aroma. Koopmans provides different preparations for vla and pudding, so choose the instructions for the texture you want.
Use the directions on your particular product. The proportions in an older cookbook are useful evidence of how the writers understood texture; they are not a universal conversion for modern powders. Products can differ, and changing the liquid by guesswork is an uncertain route to a moulded result.
Egg is a separate question
Do not use the word "custard" or the yellow colour as a shortcut to the ingredients.
The cookbook itself offers more than one approach. On the same page, it gives a vanilla vla using egg or egg yolk with cornflour, followed by a custard-powder vla with no separately added egg listed. Elsewhere, it presents caramel vla versions with and without eggs and cream.
That variety matters when you choose a product or recipe. Look at the actual ingredient list, including the powder itself, rather than assuming that every vla follows one formula. A recipe without separately added egg also does not tell you what every manufacturer's powder contains.
A set pudding can take several routes
More starch is one way to change the finish, but "set pudding" does not identify a single thickener.
The book's cold desserts include cornflour and semolina puddings, alongside guidance on gelatine-bound desserts. Their common purpose is a finished texture; their ingredients and handling differ.
Choose a recipe or product intended for the result you want. If you plan to use a mould, follow its preparation, cooling and serving directions. A softer bowl dessert can be equally useful, especially when presentation matters less than having something simple to spoon and share.
For a vanilla pudding option, Pantry also has Dr. Oetker Cooking Pudding Vanilla, a mix whose listed ingredients include sugar and corn starch. It needs preparation; follow its own pack rather than borrowing the directions for another powder.
Match the format to the moment
For pie or cake, look for a custard intended to pour or spoon alongside it. For fruit, a softer vla lets you serve the two together in a bowl. For a dessert with a defined shape, choose directions that specifically describe a set, moulded pudding.
Then decide how much preparation suits the day: an ingredient you cook, or a ready-made dessert whose texture already fits your plan. The best choice is the one that reaches the table as you imagined it.
From the Pantry Bookshelf: F. M. Stoll and W. H. de Groot, Het Nieuwe Haagse Kookboek, revised with J. C. Heidenreich, 71st printing, Elsevier Amsterdam/Brussel, 1984, pp. 268, 270, 288, 292-293 and 297-298. The comparisons and serving suggestions here are Pantry's own.
Current product reference: Koopmans Custard. Check the pack for your product's preparation and ingredient information.