bread pudding.

I think there are probably a lot of people out there who hate bread pudding. Something about the texture, or so I've heard. I am not one of them. Chelsea's mom makes amazing bread pudding, and I would love it if she gave me the recipe. It has explosions of rum and chocolate that are surreal. However, back on track, I started this past week with loads of baking. However, none of it turned out that well. Until tonight!! I was severely lacking on ingredients, and though pancakes made with yogurt instead of milk are QUITE delicious (I would suggest this for anyone making pancakes from scratch any time soon), banana muffins do not quite have a muffin consistency when made with yogurt. In fact, they were more like banana bricks. Then I tried to make cardamom bread, the quintessential holiday bread in any Scando household... but I did not have Emily Peterson's recipe and thus the recipe I used sucked. Actually, the recipe may have been alright, but my oven is always too hot and the bread was dry. In addition to dry bread and dense muffins, I made some pretty decent herbed bread (recipe to come later after I perfect it), cranberry sauce that was a bit of alright, and tonight- BREAD PUDDING. I completely made up the recipe using what I had in the house and if I had ice cream right now I would probably eat the whole pan. Well, maybe not the whole pan. But if you are lacking on ingredients and you have some stale bread- you should def try this. The pudding is probably more delicious than usual because it uses my dry cardamom bread, but I'm thinking if you just use stale white/wheat bread and add cardamom or cinnamon, it might have the same effect. 

Cheap Loner's Bread Pudding

6 tbs butter

1 c brown sugar

1 1/2 c buttermilk (this was all I had, but you can use 1/2 and 1/2, milk, or whipping cream, 

depending on your desired creaminess)

2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

6-7 cups dry/stale bread cut into 1" cubes (cardamom/wheat/white...don't use something tangy

like sourdough)

*If you are not using cardamom bread, I would suggest you add 1 tsp cinnamon or 1/2 tsp cardamom depending on your preference of spice (or both for a real whammy)

Preheat oven to 325

Melt butter in saucepan, add brown sugar and cook on medium/low until it becomes carmel-y in color and sugar appears to be melted. Take off heat and whisk in milk and vanilla. Let cool a bit (10 minutes). Whisk eggs in a separate bowl, add caramel milk mixture to eggs and stir. Add dry bread and stir until bread appears to be soaked (I like to smush it all down and really make sure it's soaked). Let sit for about 20 minutes so that bread becomes soft and soaked through. 

Bake in your desired baking dish, I used a circular cake pan. I think anything would work, as long as it's not too tall, like a square 10"x10", 2 loaf pans, pie tin, etc. Cook until fork inserted in middle comes out clean, about 30-40 minutes. 

And then my cranberry sauce....because I am the only person in my family who really likes it, it is the only thing I actually made and ate for Thanksgiving. The remainder of the afternoon was spent tending tables and scraping the sticky remains of mashedpotatosweetpotatogravy off of hundreds of plates and opening wine bottles with said sticky hands. 

Orange you a Cranberry? 

1 12-oz bag cranberries

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup orange juice

1-2 asian pears, peeled and chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

In a small pan/wok, heat sugar and orange juice until sugar is melted. Add cranberries, cinnamon, and pears and stir occasionally over medium heat until cranberries have popped and sauce becomes thick. Let cool to room temperature and chill.