Dessert
My mother never really prepared desserts when I was young. She usually just served fresh fruits if ever we had dessert. I don't know what triggered it, maybe there was too much old bread at home. There was a lengthy period that she kept on preparing and improving her bread pudding. This is a trite word but it was really moist! She kept on experimenting on the best liqueur to incorporate or best type of stale bread. She finally settled on rum and pan de sal. Our poor piano teacher was fed the many bread pudding iterations for weeks on end.
The following recipe is an homage to my mum and her one and only dessert dish.
 |
| My anti-dessert mum in our Quezon City home. |
BREAD PUDDING
Ingredients/Process to prepare a 10 inch diameter pyrex dish with additional 6 1/2 diameter dish :
- microwave 1 1/2 sticks of salted or unsalted butter for a minute; make sure you cover your container - you don't want the butter splattering inside your micro. It is best that you slice the butter following the lines on the wrapper so everything will be melted at the same time.
- in a big bowl, whisk lightly 2 lightly beaten eggs, 2 1/2 cups of cream, 1 can of evaporated milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder and 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar. Whisk well to incorporate all ingredients; no need to over beat.
- pour the melted butter in the big bowl with the cream mixture, whisk some more.
- on to your stale bread. Roughly cut you bread of choice into 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" chunks; no need to be precise. Dunk into the big bowl containing your egg/butter/cream mixture. Press bread so all bits will be submerged in the mixture. Set aside.
- roughly chop a handful of dried fruits and place in a small bowl. I just buy a bag from the grocery which has a combination of dried apples, apricots, pear and various berries. Alternatively, you can use raisins, it's just that my boys aren't that keen on raisins. Pour 2 tablespoons of Cointreau and place just enough water to cover the fruits. Let soak.
- Back to the soaking bread. Using your hands or ask one of your kids to do this fun, messy business (just make sure all hands are clean!!!!), lightly squeeze the bread bits. Swirl it around the bowl so all the bits are squeezed. Let it soak some more while you quickly grease your baking dishes. I think this was my mum's secret to the creamy, custard-like texture - squeezing the bread bits and soaking for a period of time.
- UPDATE!!!! Thanks to my eldest's suggestion, I have added cooked salted duck eggs to the bread mix. I scoop from the shell the egg part with a spoon then roughly chop it. I used 3 eggs because I still want the sweetness to come out. Kind of similar to mooncake actually :)
- in a small pot, place a cup of brown sugar plus 1/3 cup water & half a teaspoon vanilla. On high heat, swirl it around until the sugar is melted. Just eyeball it, this will take about 4 minutes or so.
- pour the syrup into baking dishes
- drain the soaking fruits and add in the bread mixture. Mix well.
- slowly pour the bread/fruit mixture in the baking dishes with syrup
- to ensure that the bread pudding is cooked with uniform heat around, set up a bain marie or hot water bath. I just use a roasting dish, place the pudding containers then carefully pour hot water around it (not the pudding!!!!)
 |
| Bain Marie (ban mah-REE). Image from theKitchn. |
- bake at pre-heated oven, 350 degrees, for 45 minutes until it is firm; do toothpick test and see if it comes off clean.
- remove from oven and carefully remove your pudding dishes from the roasting pan and let cool
- when cool, place your serving plate over the pudding then invert. Voila, look at the syrup crawling off the sides of the pudding!
- you can serve this pudding at room temperature or warm for a minute in the micro and serve with whipped cream or ice cream on the side.
