Thorough (Chocolate) Bread Pudding
I got a bee in my (Easter) bonnet yesterday to make a new chocolate recipe. Cakes and brownies are nice, but I needed some variety, you know? So I googled for "best chocolate recipe" and lo and behold, the first one I clicked had stuff I could get 'hold of easily and looked DELICIOUS.
Fast-forward to Friday night, biking home from work. "I need to stop at the market and buy Hawaiian bread," I tell my long-suffering (but very well-fed) partner, fully expecting "why" to be his response. Instead, I got, "Okay," mostly because Hawaiian bread is delicious and the suggestion to have it in the house is not likely to ever meet with resistance from him.
Only Market Basket didn't have any Hawaiian bread. They had Sweet Bread, which smelled like Hawaiian bread but weighed considerably more. I bought some, along with two hands of bananas, a small thing of heavy whipping cream, and a carton of cherry tomatoes, then - in an act of extraordinary stupidity, even by my usual standard - put the bananas, cream, and tomatoes into the bag I wore on my back for the rest of the ride home, and gave the bread to my partner to put in his bike bag. I'm so sore today, you can't even imagine.
Anyway, so we get home, I drop mention of chocolate bread pudding, and my partner stops being useful and instead starts dogging my steps, meowing about "when will it be ready when will it be ready when will it be ready." This was cute until I literally turned around and stepped on him, and then it wasn't cute anymore, it was annoying. I yelled a lot and he went away.
Fast forward an hour, there's bread pudding, and it's so good that no one cares about anything (except that the cat stole some of the bread while I was letting it dry out, this is mysterious to me because she doesn't normally go for human food, but oh well, guess she likes sweet bread?). It's rich beyond description, this pudding, so I recommend taking it in REALLY small doses. Like 2x2" servings, no joke. 'S really good, though! And easy, too. Highly recommended.
(Oh, and follow my recipe, not the original. I doubled the output and halved the work. You're welcome.)
Ingredients
6 slices sweet bread, cut into 1"ish squares, or 3 1/2 cups cut up King's Hawaiian bread, if your store carries it (*grumblegrumble*)
1 1/2 cups milk (I used soy)
4 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp coffee liqueur (I use Copa de Oro, Kahlua's probably the best-known brand)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
4 tbsp milk (I am 100% guestimating here - will update after I've made it again)
1 tbsp coffee liqueur
Whipped cream or whipped topping to serve
Instructions
Pudding
- Chop up the bread and put it into a large mixing bowl, then leave it out so it can dry out a little. Funny story about how I did that, left it on a heat-vent so it would dry faster, and the cat decided that meant she should shove her dumb little face into the bowl and chew on my freaking cut-up bread damnit cat.
- While the bread's drying, combine the milk, sugar, cocoa, liqueur, vanilla, and eggs in a medium mixing bowl and whisk until it's all smooth and frothy and smells amazing, mmm.
- Dump the milk mixture over the bread and turn it with a spatula until the bread's all wet.
- Let that sit for at least 30 minutes. I left it while I took a shower, then pre-heated the oven, and it was fine.
- Set the oven to 325*F and grease a 9x9 square cooking dish. I greased mine with butter.
- Dump the chocolate-bread mixture into it and bake 30-35 minutes, or until the top is matte but jiggles likeboobies jello.
- Take it out of the oven and set it aside while you make your ganache.
Ganache
- In a double-boiler or whatever, melt the chocolate.
- Add the milk, stirring until it's smooth and beautiful. Science, explain why this step makes the chocolate darker, please? I'm adding milk, it should be lighter, but it's 100% not, it's darker. And lovely.
- Add the liqueur, stirring until it's all smooth and beautiful. Seriously, it's beautiful.
- Dump this mess over the bread pudding while the ganache is still hot. Tilt the pan around so that the ganache evenly covers the surface of the pudding.
- Set it in the 'fridge for ... oh, an ep of The Walking Dead, so maybe one hour-ish? I honestly don't know.
- Serve it in small pieces and top it with whipped cream. For real. SO. GOOD.
(Then feel guilty and DDR a lot what)
Fast-forward to Friday night, biking home from work. "I need to stop at the market and buy Hawaiian bread," I tell my long-suffering (but very well-fed) partner, fully expecting "why" to be his response. Instead, I got, "Okay," mostly because Hawaiian bread is delicious and the suggestion to have it in the house is not likely to ever meet with resistance from him.
Only Market Basket didn't have any Hawaiian bread. They had Sweet Bread, which smelled like Hawaiian bread but weighed considerably more. I bought some, along with two hands of bananas, a small thing of heavy whipping cream, and a carton of cherry tomatoes, then - in an act of extraordinary stupidity, even by my usual standard - put the bananas, cream, and tomatoes into the bag I wore on my back for the rest of the ride home, and gave the bread to my partner to put in his bike bag. I'm so sore today, you can't even imagine.
Anyway, so we get home, I drop mention of chocolate bread pudding, and my partner stops being useful and instead starts dogging my steps, meowing about "when will it be ready when will it be ready when will it be ready." This was cute until I literally turned around and stepped on him, and then it wasn't cute anymore, it was annoying. I yelled a lot and he went away.
Fast forward an hour, there's bread pudding, and it's so good that no one cares about anything (except that the cat stole some of the bread while I was letting it dry out, this is mysterious to me because she doesn't normally go for human food, but oh well, guess she likes sweet bread?). It's rich beyond description, this pudding, so I recommend taking it in REALLY small doses. Like 2x2" servings, no joke. 'S really good, though! And easy, too. Highly recommended.
(Oh, and follow my recipe, not the original. I doubled the output and halved the work. You're welcome.)
Thorough (Chocolate) Bread Pudding
Ingredients
6 slices sweet bread, cut into 1"ish squares, or 3 1/2 cups cut up King's Hawaiian bread, if your store carries it (*grumblegrumble*)
1 1/2 cups milk (I used soy)
4 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp coffee liqueur (I use Copa de Oro, Kahlua's probably the best-known brand)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
4 tbsp milk (I am 100% guestimating here - will update after I've made it again)
1 tbsp coffee liqueur
Whipped cream or whipped topping to serve
Instructions
Pudding
- Chop up the bread and put it into a large mixing bowl, then leave it out so it can dry out a little. Funny story about how I did that, left it on a heat-vent so it would dry faster, and the cat decided that meant she should shove her dumb little face into the bowl and chew on my freaking cut-up bread damnit cat.
- While the bread's drying, combine the milk, sugar, cocoa, liqueur, vanilla, and eggs in a medium mixing bowl and whisk until it's all smooth and frothy and smells amazing, mmm.
- Dump the milk mixture over the bread and turn it with a spatula until the bread's all wet.
- Let that sit for at least 30 minutes. I left it while I took a shower, then pre-heated the oven, and it was fine.
- Set the oven to 325*F and grease a 9x9 square cooking dish. I greased mine with butter.
- Dump the chocolate-bread mixture into it and bake 30-35 minutes, or until the top is matte but jiggles like
- Take it out of the oven and set it aside while you make your ganache.
Ganache
- In a double-boiler or whatever, melt the chocolate.
- Add the milk, stirring until it's smooth and beautiful. Science, explain why this step makes the chocolate darker, please? I'm adding milk, it should be lighter, but it's 100% not, it's darker. And lovely.
- Add the liqueur, stirring until it's all smooth and beautiful. Seriously, it's beautiful.
- Dump this mess over the bread pudding while the ganache is still hot. Tilt the pan around so that the ganache evenly covers the surface of the pudding.
- Set it in the 'fridge for ... oh, an ep of The Walking Dead, so maybe one hour-ish? I honestly don't know.
- Serve it in small pieces and top it with whipped cream. For real. SO. GOOD.
(Then feel guilty and DDR a lot what)
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