July 28, 2006

Friday night pudding

I know I'm getting old when I'm home on a Friday night baking instead of out with friends. After a day of heavy traffic, pouring rain and long meetings, a relaxing and therapeutic baking session just seemed like a very good idea.

It was love at first bite for me when I tried this bread pudding for the first time at a friend's house. I had never tasted anything like it before and I haven't tasted anything like it again. I found myself thinking about it a few months later which prompted me to ask my friend for the recipe. She said she would gladly ask her mom to write it down for me, then said that I could also get it straight from the horse's mouth, our mutual tita. Which I did.

Years went by and it was never made. I couldn't convince myself that I could make it even half as good, that it wouldn't be just a waste of ingredients. So the other day, as I was leafing through the index cards in my mom's recipe box looking for her ratatouille recipe (which I am making for a potluck dinner I'm hosting tomorrow), I saw it! The unmade bread pudding. I figured what the heck, if I screwed it up I'll just drown it in butterscotch, then how bad can it be right?

Well, it turned out excellent if I may say so myself! Soft and chewy on the inside with a nice brown crust that had the right amount of crunch.

I made two sauces for it, butterscotch and vanilla. This bread pudding recipe is so good though that if you didn't want the added calories, you could skip the sauce.


Bread Pudding Marina

Ingredients:
6 cups day old bread, chopped into small pieces
1 stick margarine, softened
1 1/2 cups fresh milk
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 eggs, beaten
3 tbsp mango jam

Preheat the oven to 350 deg. Mix all the ingredients except the bread. Put all the bread in a pyrex. Make sure you spread it out evenly and it only comes up to about half of the pyrex. Pour the mix evenly over the bread and bake for 40 mins.

Butterscotch Sauce

Ingredients:
1 egg yolk, beaten
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup water
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup flour

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Cook mixture on top of double boiler over hot water until thickened, stirring frequently.

I got the vanilla custard recipe from epicurious.

13 comments:

carlosceldran said...

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.

Sorry bout not showing up Thursday. Black Eyed Peas went on till near midnight...

travel plaza said...

Mmmm..sounds absolutely heavenly. Must give it a try..

christine said...

No problem Carlos, just gives us another reason to get together again. :) I'll let you know where and when!

Hi TP, you must! :)

briliantdonkey said...

oh wow ,,,,that looks AWESOME! I have been wanting some bread pudding for quite a while too. I THink I may make that today in fact. Dont some people put a bit of rum in it too? Thanks for the recipe

christine said...

Yes most recipes use rum. This is the simplest form of bread pudding, I think. I plan to try it in different versions next time: with raisins soaked in rum and adding cinnamon.

Ana said...

looks yummy =)

Anonymous said...

The bread pudding! It looks great! :)

wysgal said...

I adore bread pudding. It's not very common in the Philippines --- but my family became obsessed with it after a cruise we went on where they had the loveliest warm bread pudding with this gorgeously rich vanilla custard sauce.

I took home a recipe --- alas it's written for cruise-ship type servings (i.e. 5 lbs of bread ... etc). =)

christine said...

Yes, jo, THE bread pudding! :) I'm so psyched I was able to make it. I'm sure it's not as good as your grandmother's but hey it's a start! I wish you could have tried it so you can give me your opinion. I'll have to make it again sometime then you can help me tweak it.

Wysgal, now that you mention it not many restaurants have it on their dessert menu no? I never realized that because it was never something I thought to order at the restaurant, but more to be had at someone's home.

Anonymous said...

Your bread pudding sounds wonderful! I'm putting this recipe aside for when I start baking again, which will be when the temperatures here begin to cool off.

christine said...

Katrina, I thought about using raisin bread instead of adding the raisins separately next time. But I'll probably need to tone down the sugar a bit since the raisin bread will already be sweet.

Wow, those 2 bread puddings you mentioned sound divine! I wish I had a chance to try them while they were still available.

Julie, I hope you like it as much as I do. Let me know when you try it. :)

vina said...

*sob* at least you know how to bake Tin. *sob* but i'm a good eater, hehe.

by the way, as always, that looks yummy.

so far, i've tasted this delicious bread pudding of hyatt hotel...i'm sure yours could equal that :)

christine said...

Vina, you could make this trust me, it's so simple! And I'm sure it would come out just as yummy or maybe even yummier! :)