If You Know Me…

you know that I love bread pudding, which means you won’t be surprised to learn that I turned my brioche into an amazing bread pudding. 

Pretty much since the moment I chose brioche as March’s baking challenge I knew I’d be turning that baby into bread pudding.  Banana brioche bread pudding to be exact and it turned out even better than I had hoped.  The recipe I used comes from The Craft of Baking, which I purchased on Megan’s recommendation.  (Thanks, Megan! So far so good!)  I adapted the recipe quite a bit  and to really push this breading pudding over the edge I  topped it with Emeril’s whiskey sauce, which I also adapted. 

Banana Brioche Bread Pudding, adapted from The Craft of Baking’s Berry Brioche Bread Pudding

Ingredients

1. Unsalted butter, for greasing the dish (I used Pam)
2. 2 TB turbinado sugar
3. 1 cup heavy cream
4. 1 cup whole milk (I used 2%)
5. 1/2 cup granulated sugar
6. 1/2 tsp kosher salt
7. 2 large eggs
8. 2 large egg yolks
9. 3/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
10. 2 bananas, cut into 1/4 in slices (I just mushed mine with a fork leaving them a little chunky)
11. 6 cups of brioche, cut into 1 1/2-inch dice

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375°.  Butter an 8 inch square baking dish and coat the dish with the 1 TB of turbinado sugar.
2. In a large bowl place the diced brioche.
3. In a heat proof bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, yokes, and salt.  (I added the vanilla here.)
4. Combine the cream, milk, granulated sugar, and vanilla in a large saucepan.  Heat over medium, stirring to dissolve the sugar, just to a bare simmer.  Remove the pan from the heat and pour one third of the cream mixture into the egg mixture. Whisk to combine well.  Return egg mixture to the remaining cream mixture and whisk to combine.  Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve placed over the bowl of brioche. Gently stir to coat all of the brioche with the custard.  Fold in banana slices.  (I stirred vigorously as I wanted some of the bread to breakdown.)
5. (The recipe doesn’t say but let your bread soak for a bit to absorb all the yummy custard.  I check it after about 30 minutes to see how much custard the bread has sucked up.  You don’t need to do this step but I don’t like chunks of dried tasteless bread in my pudding.)
6. Pour bread/banana/custard mixture into your prepared baking dish.  Sprinkle with the remaining 1TB of turbinado sugar and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake, rotating the dish (I didn’t do this) and removing the foil halfway through, until the top is crisp and toasted and the custard is set, about 45 minutes.  Serve warm from the oven. 

Whiskey Sauce, adapted from Emeril’s Whiskey Sauce

1 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup whole milk

1/4 cup granulated white sugar

1 TB cornstarch

1/4 cup bourbon or other whiskey

Pinch salt

1 tablespoons unsalted butter

In a 1-quart saucepan set over medium heat, combine the cream, milk, and sugar. Place the cornstarch and 1/4 cup of the bourbon in a small mixing bowl and whisk to blend and make a slurry. Pour the slurry into the cream mixture and bring to a boil. Once the sauce begins to boil, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Remove the sauce from the heat, add the salt, and stir in the butter. Serve warm.  (I think the bourbon/whisky could have been reduced but that’s just me.  I don’t drink and thought it was a little strong.  Rum would probably also work.)

***The lovely photos you see in this post were taken by my children’s sitter, the wonderful Miss Karolyn.  Thanks, Karolyn!

S'mores Bread Pudding

When you have bread going stale what do you make?  Why bread  pudding of course!  And if you're me S'mores bread pudding to be exact! :)

I remembered drooling over Peabody's photos of her S'mores Bread Pudding awhile back and new this was the perfect opportunity to give it a go. 

 

I checked out the recipe since it had been a while and I couldn't  find the printout in the stack of ten thousand sheets I have lying in a mountainous pile.What I found after checking the recipe was that she used a Hot Chocolate bread.  Well, I wasn't making one and the whole point of the bread pudding was to use up my leftover baguette.  Not to be deterred I decided to adapt the recipe to suit my purpose and taste.  I think I did pretty good though I'm sure had I followed her recipe I would have also been happy. 

S’mores Bread Pudding (my adaptations in red)

1 Guatemalan Hot Chocolate Bread (recipe follows)- cut up into square pieces (I used 1 loaf of french bread.)

1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ cup whole milk  (I used 2%)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 egg yolks
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

10 graham crackers
¾ cup mini chocolate chips (semi-sweet Guittard chocolate chips)
2 cups marshmallows (give or take, the amount is really up to you, I used minis)

Butter a 8-x-8-inch pan.  (1 souffle dish)
Whisk together the heavy whipping cream, milk, sugar, egg yolks, egg and vanilla extract. Set aside, this is the custard mixture.  (I cut up my baguette and added it to the custard mixture.   I left the bread soaking in the custard and stirred it occasionally until most of the custard was soaked up by the bread.)
Sprinkle bread pieces on the bottom of the pan so that the pan is covered. (I layered the custard soaked bread, graham crackers, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips in the souffle dish.  One layer of bread pudding, one layer of graham cracker, liberally sprinkled with mini marshmallows,chocolate chips, and another layer of bread pudding followed by the graham crackers.)  Break graham crackers in to pieces (I keep mine in whole pieces. Just breaking off pieces to fit my dish.) and sprinkle evenly half of them on top of the bread. Sprinkle evenly half of the chocolate chips as well. Add 1/3 of the custard mixture and press bread down so that the custard soaks in. You may need more custard depending on how dry your bread is. Then add bread pieces again, followed by remaining graham crackers and chocolate chips. Add another 1/3 of the custard mixture and again press the bread down to make sure all the bread pieces get soaked with custard. Keep adding the custard until all of the piece are soak through with custard. You will most likely have both bread pieces and custard left over (I didn't have any of either leftover), feel free to make a mini one.
Place dish in a water bath and bake at 350F for 1 hour. After the first 20 minutes, place aluminum foil on top of the bread pudding to prevent the graham cracker pieces and top of the bread from browning too much.
When the bread pudding comes out of the oven, immediately (I added more chocolate chips and then the marshmallows) spread marshmallows on top to allow them to melt. You can use a kitchen torch (Joe used our kitchen torch) or place under a broiler to get the toasted marshmallow look. Top with chocolate syrup (The kids and I don't do a lot of chocolate so we left off the syrup.) and serve warm (or hot or cold for me).

The sitter, Miss Karolyn and the twins really liked the it.  Babygirl was too slow so she missed out.  Devon, my unofficial taste tester said it was good but that the Bananas Foster one was better.  (I think it was the Bananas Foster sauce that put it over the edge!) I admit to liking this better after it cooled substantially. When I first tasted it still warm (hot) from the oven I didn't like how "wet" the bread still was  (I DO NOT like mushy, soggy  textures! EW!) but after it cooled to room temperature it was perfect, moist with a yummy custardy flavor but not soggy.

I broke out my new kitchen torch and (finally) used it or rather Joe did to toast the marshmallows.  I was a little timid and kept worrying we'd burn the house down or at least each other.  He did a good job.  Did ya see all those lovely toasted marshmallows?

**Please let me know if I missed something in the recipe or if I didn't explain myself well.

Don't forget to answer my question with your opinion and enter my giveaway!

Technorati Tags: giveaway,s'mores,marshmallows,chocolate,graham crackers,bread pudding

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding

A few weeks ago I while I was visiting the blog, Annie's Eats I saw that she had made Bananas Foster Bread Pudding and that the recipe had won her over.  She says in her post that she hadn't been a fan of bread pudding prior to that recipe.  Already a fan of it I was excited to give the recipe a try. 

I was not disappointed.  The bread pudding was excellent  and the Foster's sauce was even better.  The sauce is one that could be made over and over again to serve with other desserts.  I had some  left over and  topped some vanilla ice cream with it.    The kids loved it as well as the bread pudding.  I would make this again especially the Foster's sauce!  Speaking of making again a few of you asked it I would make again the "sugar cookie" cake from my previous post.  YES, I would!  Sorry I didn't make that clear.  Hope those of you with a love for sugar cookies or just of cake give it a try.

I did have one issue with the recipe.  The amount of "custard" to bread was off.  I had more custard than I needed for the amount of bread used. Unfortunately I didn't realize it until I had added all of the bread (6 cups).  I let my bread soak longer,  in hopes that  it soak up more of the excess custard.  I would have added more bread but I used up all I had.  Not being overly bothered by the extra custard I went ahead and spooned it all into my ramekins and souffle dish and baked for the 50 minute.  While the taste of the extra custard was fine the texture was not really smooth.  It was kind of curdly due I'm certain to the mashed bananas (It might help the texture to puree the bananas  in a blender or food processor) but again it didn't effect the taste as the scrapped clean dish can attest!

I baked my bread pudding in six small ramekins and one medium sized souffle dish.  Thinking and looking back at the photos I should have whipped up some heavy cream to top it all with, duh!  Not only would it have added to the overall photo it would have tasted great along with the bread pudding.  I just never think of those "touches" at the time. :(

Baseball update:  We had a double header this past Saturday and won both games.  The exciting part was I had, on the spur of the moment planned a BBQ for the team.  Thankfully everything went well.  Seems everyone was pleased how it turned out and we have decided to do it again this Saturday during another double header.  I did bake for it but didn't get any photos. Maybe next time and to be quite frank while they were tasy they were  not anything special.

Books:  I'm starting to read Bliss by O.Z. Livaneli.  I am actually reading with my friend Wendy and we started to day.  While I was a B&N with Wendy I also picked up a copy of the Food Lover's Companion.  It's a great reference book.  Yes, you can go on the Internet and get the same info but I'm old school and like looking it up in the book.  I also like the convenience of having it by my side. :-)  Okay, you listening?  I'm having my first giveaway!  One of the items I'm giving away is the book Food Lover's Companion and the other is Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.  I'll be pre-ordering you a copy.  It is due to be released on June 2nd. Details soon to follow!

Technorati Tags: bananas,bread pudding,foster sauce,giveaway