Tuesday, October 07, 2008

All night long

Here's a question for y'all, do you get nervous talking to really hott people?

So, I'm on a bread pudding kick. I love bread pudding, and some of the restaurants that have it here, are cutting it out of their menu, so I decided that in order to really get good pudding, I'd have to make it myself, I've been saying that for a couple months. Well, my grandmother's 90-something birthday party is on Sunday, and when we were planning it out in September, I said I'd make bread pudding and bring it. My mother said I needed to try 3 recipes and figure out the best one. I made one recipe a couple weeks after that, and got all bummed that it didn't turn out too well. Sunday, mom brings me 3 more recipes and a gift card to Fareway for $25.00. I looked at all my recipes, decided what I needed and went and bought stuff today.
I made a 2nd attempt today, and barely got it out of the oven before I had to run off to work. I did taste it, and it tasted pretty good even without the Rum sauce they suggest serving it with. I also prepared a 3rd one and it's waiting in my fridge to be cooked when I get home.

I'm gonna post the recipes on here, so other people can enjoy them. I'm also gonna tell you what went wrong (it's a given something will go wrong, it always does when I'm cooking)

FIRST ATTEMPT:

Cinnamon Peach Bread Pudding

8 slices white bread
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon margarine
2 Tablespoons peach spreadable fruit spread
1 1/3 cups skim milk
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Toast bread. Spread with margarine and peach spreadable fruit. Cube bread. Pour skim milk into 4-cup glass measure. Scald, but DO NOT BOIL MILK in microwave about 4 to 7 minutes on HIGH. Let cool. In a large bowl, stir eggs with a wire whisk. Add sugar, cinnamon and vanilla extrat. Stir in scalded milk. Mix well to combine. Add bread. Mix well. Let set about 10 minutes for bread to absorb milk. Pour into an 8-by-8 inch microwave-safe baking dish. Bake at 50% or MEDIUM power in microwave for about 10 minutes.
(from Healthy Exchanges Cookbook by JoAnna M. Lund, page 187)


I felt that peach should not go with bread pudding, so I eliminated that. By doing that, the pudding was a little bland. Kevin suggested I dump some apple pie filling in the next recipe, so I bought some.

SECOND ATTEMPT:
Donut Bread Pudding

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 (4 1/2-ounce) cans fruit cocktail, with their juice
2 eggs, beaten
Pinch salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
24 donuts, cut into cubes (recommended: Krispuy Kreme)
Butter Rum Sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all ingredients except for the donut cubes and Butter Rum Sauce. Add the donut cubes and toss until they have absorbed as much of the liquid as possible. Pour the mixture into a casserole dish and bake for one hour. Serve with Butter Rum Sauce.
Butter Rum Sauce
1 stick butter
1 (1 pound) box confectioners' sugar
Dark Rum

In a saucepan, melt butter and gradually stir in the confectioner's sugar. Add rum and heat until bubbly. Pour over each serving of Donut Bread Pudding.
(from the food network, Paula Deen's recipe)

For this one, I used a store brand donuts, it still tastes good. But I found that 24 donuts were too many, by the time I got 12 donuts cubed and into my mixing bowl, all the liquid had been soaked up. Like I said, I haven't made the rum sauce yet, but looking at the recipe now, I wonder how much rum I'm supposed to put in.

THIRD ATTEMPT:
Rum Raisin Bread Pudding

3 cups milk
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons rum
1/2 cup raisins
7 (1/2-inch) slices brioche bread, cubed or torn
4 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large saucepan, add milk, butter, vanilla, cinnamon, brown sugar, rum and raisins and heat until war. simmer and stir until sugar dissolves. Into a large bowl add the cubed bread and pour in the hot milk mixture. Let sit for 30 minutes so the bread absorbs the milk. Add the beaten eggs to the bread and milk mixture and stir. Pour bread pudding into a buttered 1 1/2 quart baking dish and bake for 50 minutes.

(from food network, The Neely's recipe)

This one is sitting in my fridge waiting to be baked, I wonder if that will make the bread really soggy. HMMM. I learned to mix the ingredients first and then warm them on the stove, because that rum really boils over.

2 comments:

Carrie M said...

I had a feeling the second one was a Paula Deen recipe. She lOVES putting tons of crap in food--the more sugary and fattening the better. She has a recipe for breakfast sandwiches that are basically fast food biscuit sandwiches, but instead of biscuits she suggested glazed doughnuts. I nearly became diabetic just LOOKING at the recipe.

The rum is just to flavor it, so I would only put in a about a shot glass full, but no more than that.

*Goddess* said...

What's with grandmas and bread pudding? My grandmother used to love it, but I don't think there's anything to it. Basically, it's eggs, milk, bread and sugar. Yuck.