Tag: bread

Bread Pudding with Maple Caramel Sauce

Stale bread may not sound very appetizing to you, but it is the main ingredient in one of the tastiest desserts you will ever eat. And it is so easy to make that people have been baking bread pudding for thousands of years.

I imagine that the first bread pudding was made three or four days after the first bread was pulled off the fire. It may have happened like this:

When Adam asked Eve, “Should I throw out this old bread?” she said, “Don’t you dare. I worked hard baking that bread.”

“But it’s stale and hard and you baked some more today,” says Adam.

“Just put it on that rock. I’ll make something with it. Maybe chop up an apple to make a good pudding.”

The rest is history.

My mother baked most of the bread we ate at home, but my parents both looked for bargains. When the A & P was having a special on bread, they would buy a couple of loaves of what we kids loved: “Store Bought Bread.” We liked the soft slices with peanut butter and jelly, but Mom dried them for bread pudding or turkey stuffing.

I do the same today. I watch for sales on ordinary white bread and turn it into bread pudding. It’s remarkably easy to do. If you don’t count the time to dry the bread or while the pudding is baking, it takes less than half an hour to make the pudding and sauce.

INGREDIENTS:

For the pudding:
4 large eggs
2 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 T vanilla
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
6 cups dry bread cut into cubes
1/2 cup raisins

For the sauce:
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 T cornstarch
1/3 cup half-and-half
2 T maple syrup
1 T butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla

PROCEDURE:

To make the pudding, first dry the bread. You can cut 10 to 12 slices of soft white bread into half inch cubes and dry them in a warm oven for a couple of hours or dry the slices and cut them into cubes later. I have done it both ways, but I prefer the second because I like the more irregularly shaped pieces and bread crumbs that result.

My method is to arrange the slices in a couple of large pizza pans, turn the oven on low for five minutes, turn the oven off and let the slices dry for an hour. I then turn them over, turn the oven on for another five minutes, turn it off and let the slices finish drying. I usually dry the bread a day or two in advance and store the slices in plastic bags until I need them.

To make the pudding, start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Put six cups of dried bread cubes in a large bowl. Mix the raisins with the bread and spread the mixture in a seven by eleven inch ungreased baking dish.

In a large bowl beat the eggs until they are lemon colored. Beat the cinnamon into the eggs, then stir in the milk, sugar, salt and vanilla.  Pour the egg mixture evenly over the bread mixture.  Flatten the mixture gently with the back of a spoon to ensure that all the bread cubes are moistened.

Bake the pudding uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool slightly.  Serve warm with the warm caramel sauce.

To make the sauce, combine the brown sugar and cornstarch in a small heavy saucepan.  Dissolve the sugar and cornstarch in a quarter cup of cold water.  Put the pan over medium heat. Stir in the half-and-half, maple syrup, and butter.  Cook and stir until bubbly.

Don’t worry if the sauce appears curdled as it will become smooth and creamy when you stir in the vanilla.  Cook and stir two minutes more.  Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Store any leftover pudding and sauce in the refrigerator.

NOTES: I have not tried chopped apples in my bread pudding, but currants and dried cranberries work fine. Chopped dates would work too, but we have a really good date pudding recipe that you can find here.

If you use unsalted butter for the sauce, add a dash of salt to the recipe. Salt helps bring out the sweetness of the sugar and syrup.

If you don’t have whole milk in the fridge but do have some half and half, use two cups reduced fat milk and one half cup of half and half. Otherwise, punt and pray.

You can use any kind of commercial or homemade white bread including French or Italian bread if it doesn’t have seeds on it. Don’t worry about the crusts; they add interest to the pudding.

From Ireland: Myrtle Allen’s Brown Bread

St. Patrick’s Day is almost here, and one old man’s fancy turns to thoughts of bread. Not Irish soda bread but a wonderful moist yeast bread from Ireland that you don’t knead. The recipe below is a variation of the one in Beard on Bread, one of my favorite cookbooks. In it James Beard describes how he found the recipe at Myrtle Allen’s inn, Ballymaloe House, in Ireland. If you like a firm bread that is wonderful with butter and cheese, give this one a try.

INGREDIENTS:

3 3/4 cups whole-wheat flour
1/4 tsp. white sugar
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (100 to 115º)
2 T dark molasses, dark corn syrup, sorghum or honey
2 tsp. salt

PROCEDURE:

Put the flour and salt in an ovenproof mixing bowl and place in a warm oven with the oven thermostat at its lowest setting. Leave it in the oven about 10 minutes. The flour and bowl should be warm when you mix the dough.

Take one-half cup warm water, add one-fourth teaspoon sugar and stir in the yeast. Allow to proof. Dissolve the molasses (or honey or syrup) in the remaining one and a half cups water. When the flour feels warm to your fingers, remove the bowl from the oven. Stir the yeast mixture into the molasses water and pour the liquid into the flour.

Stir with a wooden spoon until you have a sticky dough, almost like a very stiff batter. At times of low humidity you may need a little more liquid. If so, add water. If the dough seems too thin, add a tablespoon or two of flour and stir in well. Since you do not knead this dough, I have found that stirring it well for a minute or so gives a better texture.

Put the dough into a buttered nine by five by three-inch bread pan. Tap the pan on the counter to remove any air bubbles and smooth the top. As soon as you have put the dough into the pan, preheat your oven to 425º. Allow the dough to rise uncovered in a warm draft free place until it is even with the top of the pan.

Bake the bread for thirty-five to forty-five minutes or until the crust is nicely browned and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove the bread from the pan and leave it in the turned-off oven for a few minutes to make the crust crisp. Put the bread on a rack to cool. Brush the top and sides with a little butter while the loaf is still hot.

NOTES: Substituting honey, sorghum or corn syrup for the molasses changes the flavor of the bread so much that you might call it a new recipe. All four work well. I have used ordinary clover honey and a dark prairie honey, which has a lot of flavor, and both make excellent bread.

A friend introduced me to sorghum, and I very much like the flavor of the bread made with this syrup. Today sorghum is produced in relatively small quantities by farmers in Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina and other states in the southern part of the U.S. You can find it in many larger supermarkets and organic food stores.

Once you put the batter in the pan, the dough will rise quickly, so watch it carefully. If it rises over the top of the pan, the loaf will fall during baking but it will taste fine.