Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Cinnamon-Rum Sauce

Bread pudding is one of those things I have never had. When it comes to dessert I want something that really sounds like dessert, like something rich and chocolatey. Bread for dessert never sounded appealing to me. Maybe this recipe caught my eye because of the chocolate chips, but I decided that for our unconventional dinner we needed an unconventional dessert. I was originally going to make a very yummy-sounding cranberry-ribbon apple pie, but decided it didn’t quite fit with the rest of our dinner. That and I didn’t want to battle with pie crust again. So I took on something completely new, and not only made and ate bread pudding for the first time in my life, I made my own bread too.

It was an all day endeavor, to say the least. But I knew our grocery store didn’t have any brioche or egg bread (we’ve looked), and didn’t want to settle for something ordinary for this dessert. I made my own egg bread, which I then cubed and doused with custard. A truly homemade dessert from start to finish. And well worth the effort… Taylor said it’s the best thing I’ve baked in a long time (keep in mind the things you’re competing with here). I gain approval from him not through compliments or material goods or other ways in which women gain approval from their men, no… I do it through baked goods. A mediocre pie, to me, is worse than a bad hair day any day of the week. So this… to be the best thing I’ve baked in a long time…. this was a huge success.

My only advice is to wait at least 90 minutes (if not more) after dinner before you even attempt to eat this. It’s filling, to say the least, and you want to be able to enjoy every last bit of it.

I searched high and low for an egg bread/brioche recipe to make for this pudding… After finding a myriad of recipes, all of them different, some taking days and requiring way too many complicated steps, I ended up going with one I knew had to work… Betty is a failsafe like that. The result was more of a rich white bread than a brioche, but it worked great for the pudding. And for my first foray into breadmaking, it turned out pretty darned good if I do say so myself!

Rich Egg Bread

Makes 1 loaf. Recipe from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook.

INGREDIENTS
3 to 3 1/4 cups all-purpose or bread flour (not self-rising)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package regular or quick active dry yeast
1 cup very warm water (120Ëš to 130Ëš)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large egg
melted butter or margarine (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Mix 1 1/2 cups of the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Add warm water and oil. Beat with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Add egg, beat until smooth. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead about 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy. Place dough in large bowl greased with shortening, turning dough to grease all sides. (At this point, dough can be refrigerated up to 24 hours). Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until double, about 1 hour. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.

Grease bottom and sides of an 8 1/2″ or 9″ loaf pan. Gently push fist into dough to deflate. Flatten dough with hands or rolling pin into 18×9-inch rectangle. Roll up tightly, beginning at 9-inch side. Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal. Press each end with side of hand to seal; fold ends under loaf. Place loaf, seam side down, in pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap lightly sprayed with cooking spray and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Move oven rack to low position so that top of pan will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 375ËšF. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until loaf is deep golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from pan to wire rack. Brush loaf with butter and cool.

You can easily halve this recipe and put it in an 8×8 pan, or if you don’t have one, it fits perfectly in a 9.5″ pie dish. You can assemble the pudding a day ahead, cover and refrigerate, then bake just before serving.

Easily make a dairy free version of this recipe (that even the milk aficionados would have a hard time telling the difference) by substituting soy creamer for half and half and dairy-free margarine for the butter.

Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Cinnamon-Rum Sauce

Makes 12 to 14 servings. Recipe from Epicurious.

INGREDIENTS
1 1-pound loaf brioche or egg bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 2/3 of the Betty Crocker loaf, weight it just to be sure)
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 1/2 cups half and half
1 cup sugar
6 large eggs
4 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar

For sauce:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup dark rum (brandy works nicely too if you don’t have rum)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 13×9x2-inch glass baking dish. Place bread in large bowl; pour 8 tablespoons melted butter over bread and toss to coat. Add chocolate chips and toss to combine. Transfer mixture to prepared dish.

Whisk half and half, 1 cup sugar, eggs, egg yolks, vanilla extract, and salt in large bowl to blend. Pour over bread cubes in dish. Let stand 30 minutes, occasionally pressing bread cubes into custard. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.) Drizzle remaining 2 tablespoons melted butter over pudding; sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake bread pudding until puffed, brown, and set in center, about 1 hour.

For sauce, melt unsalted butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add dark brown sugar, ground cinnamon, and salt and whisk until sugar is dissolved and mixture is bubbling and smooth, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat. Whisk in dark rum and vanilla extract. Drizzle over pudding. Serve warm.

Golden Brioche Bread

The breadmaking continues… I’m determined to flub my way into bread making success. This would be attempt #3 (score: decent – 1, not so good – also 1.)

This bread, on the other hand, is a winner for sure. Time consuming, yes, but I’m starting to think that breadmaking is something than can’t be condensed into a few hours.

I’m just warning you though – this bread is not health food. Case in point: 3 sticks of butter. Yes, 3 entire sticks. That’s 1 1/2 sticks per loaf. When we sliced into this the other night to accompany our Valentine’s dinner, I automatically reached for the butter, since we like our bread toasted and buttered. Then I remembered how much butter is already in this bread, and I realized more on top was entirely unnecessary – this bread is self-buttered!

But oh, how wonderful this bread is… it’d be fabulous made into some decadent French toast, or torn to pieces and baked to perfection in our chocolate chip bread pudding (hence it’s placement in both the breakfast AND dessert categories). In fact, this is exactly the bread I was trying to make for that recipe… if only I had found it the first time around, a great recipe could have been even better.

The recipe claims to make 3 loaves. But who on earth has a loaf pan that size? Crazy. Mine made two perfect loaves in standard size loaf pans, just divide the dough into two pieces instead of three. It also didn’t rise quite as much as I expected. I stuck the dough into the oven to rise, and that seemed to help. Simply turn your oven to warm for 30 seconds, then turn it off. That’ll give you a nice warm spot to let your dough rise.

Oh, and I wouldn’t recommend trying this recipe if you don’t have a stand mixer. Your arm will get VERY tired trying to use a hand mixer. Unless you can recruit a big strong man to do it for you, that is. :)

Golden Brioche

Makes 2-3 loaves.
Recipe from Epicurious.

INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1/3 cup warm milk (105°F to 115°F)
2 envelopes dry yeast
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, each stick cut into 4 pieces, room temperature

1 egg, beaten to blend with 1 tablespoon water (for glaze)

DIRECTIONS
Place 1/3 cup warm water, warm milk, and yeast in bowl of standing heavy-duty mixer; stir until yeast dissolves. Fit mixer with dough hook. Add flour and salt to bowl; mix on low speed just until flour is moistened, about 10 seconds. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl. Beat in 3 eggs on low speed, then add sugar. Increase speed to medium and beat until dough comes together, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding next (dough will be soft and batter-like). Increase speed to medium-high and beat until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 7 minutes.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until almost doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Lift up dough around edges and allow dough to fall and deflate in bowl. Cover bowl with plastic and chill until dough stops rising, lifting up dough around edges and allowing dough to fall and deflate in bowl every 30 minutes, about 2 hours total. Cover bowl with plastic; chill dough overnight.

Butter and flour three 7 1/2×3 1/2×2-inch loaf pans. Divide dough into 3 equal pieces. Cut each dough piece into 4 equal pieces. Roll each into 3 1/2-inch-long log, forming 12 logs total. Arrange 4 logs crosswise in bottom of each prepared loaf pan. Place loaf pans on baking sheet. Cover pans with waxed paper. Let loaves rise at room temperature until dough almost fills pans, about 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Gently brush top of loaves with egg glaze. Bake until loaves are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped, about 30 minutes. Cool in pans on racks 15 minutes. Turn loaves out onto racks; cool at least 1 hour. (Can be made ahead. Cool completely. Wrap loaves in foil; place in resealable plastic bags and store at room temperature 1 day or freeze up to 1 month. Rewarm room-temperature or thawed loaves wrapped in foil in 350°F oven about 15 minutes, if desired.)

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Does anyone ever go through a whole bunch of bananas? I feel like whenever I do buy them (for smoothies or whatever), I can never finish them before they turn a lovely shade of speckled black. But ever since I can remember, I’ve never thrown these black bananas out. Instead, when they are just past the point where you’d want to eat them sliced over cereal, well, that’s when they are just starting to get good. Yup, whenever I see two lonely black bananas on the counter, I just know. It’s banana bread time.

But not just any banana bread. There will be no nuts contaminating this loaf of love. Nope, this banana bread is speckled with mini chocolate chips.

Yes, chocolate chips. Breakfast doesn’t get any better than that!

But be warned, after eating this, you’ll find yourself hoping your bananas turn black! You’ll find yourself scouring the banana display at the store for the yellowest bananas, in hopes that they will ripen the quickest. When speaking of this banana bread, black bananas are pure gold.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Makes 1 loaf.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk or soymilk
1/4 cup water
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350ËšF. Grease and flour 1 large loaf pan. In large bowl, beat together all ingredients. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until top is dark brown and cracked, and a toothpick inserted into the bread comes out spotless (unless you hit a chocolate chip, of course).

Turkey Ottoman Gyros and Homemade Pita Bread

Ok, so just because my last post was so – monumental? – doesn’t mean I’m ignoring you. We’ve still been cooking, and eating, and taking pictures of things… but surprisingly we’ve also been repeating things. Like that Darn Good Pasta Salad? Yea. Made it three times since I posted it. This gem of a red-lentil-soup? A few times more. And well, to be honest, sometimes I just want to sit down and eat something when we finish it, rather than spending time trying to take pretty pictures of a piece of fish that fell apart in the pan. Yes, that happens too.

Anyways, on to the food. Because that’s the reason we’re all here, right?

One good, new thing we made this week (well, mostly new) was this…. a twist on the typical gyros with homemade pita bread. For the gyro meat, we usedAlton Brown’s gyro recipe that we had made before… but seeing as ground lamb is not easy to find (can you tell I just LOVE our grocery store?) we used ground turkey instead. Not too bad – different flavor for sure, but good.

But the best part was the homemade pita bread…. made out of necessity, because when was the last time you actually had a really good pita bread from the grocery store? Thought so. They must have finally realized it too because our grocery store even stopped carrying them – completely. That or they just moved them. Either way, I couldn’t find them, and didn’t really want to eat them if I had, so I decided to make it myself.

I will never buy store brand pita bread again. It wasn’t too hard to make it, and the results were beyond delicious. Plus, you get to watch them do this in the oven:

So I guess that explains where the pocket comes from… another food mystery has been solved!

Sometimes the pocket worked, sometimes it didn’t. Even the pocket-less pitas were good, so don’t toss them! Some of ours also got a bit too crispy. I pressed as much steam out of them as I could without cracking them – but the recipe isn’t kidding when it says put in a plastic bag right away. The steam builds up inside the bag, and softens the bread into the pita bread you’ll recognize. For the really crispy ones – I first covered the bread with a damp tea towel. That softened it enough to get the pocket flatter, at which point I put it in the bag.

Homemade Pita Bread

Makes about a dozen. Recipe from About.

INGREDIENTS
1 package of yeast, or quick rising yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 teapsoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 cup lukewarm water

DIRECTIONS
Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until water is frothy.

Combine flour and salt in large bowl. Make a small depression in the middle of lour and pur yeast water in depression. Slowly add 1 cup of warm water, and stir with wooden spoon or rubber spatula until elastic. Place dough on floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes. When the dough is no longer stick and is smooth and elastic, it has been successfully kneaded.

Coat large bowl with vegetable oil and place dough in bowl. Turn dough upside down so all of the dough is coated. Allow to sit in a warm place for about 3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.

Once doubled, roll out in a rope, and pinch off 10-12 small pieces. Place balls on floured surface. Let sit covered for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 deg F. and make sure rack is at the very bottom of oven. Be sure to preheat your baking sheet also.

Roll out each ball of dough with a rolling pin into circles. Each should be about 5-6 inches across and 1/4 inch thick.

Bake each circle for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up. Turn over and bake for 2 minutes. Remove each pita with a spatula from the baking sheet and add additional pitas for baking. Take spatula and gently push down puff. Immediately place in storage bags. Pita bread can be stored for up to a week in a pantry or bread box, and up to a month in the freezer. Be sure to use freezer bags when storing in the freezer.

Pasta with Spicy Anchovy Sauce and Thyme Bread Crumbs

Perciatelli. A kind of pasta I never even knew existed. It’s almost like if macaroni and spaghetti had a kid…. it’d be perciatelli. A hallow, thick spaghetti, basically. We were about to substitute spaghetti, but one last look in the pasta aisle and I found it! Really! At our often times scarce when it comes to gourmet/specialty/ethnic foods grocery store! I know… I almost couldn’t believe it either.

This recipe, however, didn’t quite live up to the excitement of finding the fancy pasta. It had a good flavor, but felt lacking. I can’t even pinpoint what about it was off or how we could improve upon it. Maybe it was because we ran out of Parmesan. Or maybe the dill really makes the dish (the original recipe calls for dill breadcrumbs – but both Taylor and I have a strong hatred of dill. Ok, hatred might be too harsh a word… but we both really don’t like it. So we used thyme instead.)

The name of the recipe is deceiving. I don’t know if Taylor maybe forgot to add the red pepper flakes (doubtful – he’s too diligent) but “spicy” is the last word I’d use to describe it. Even if you’re not a fan of spice, double, ok ok triple the red pepper flakes.

I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t even feel like posting recipes that I don’t simply rave about. But it’s a pretty picture, and maybe you all can learn from something. Learn what NOT to do? I don’t know. This made a lot too – more than our usual dinner for two plus lunch the next day serving size, and we couldn’t eat it again.

Oh well. Win some, lose some, right?

I’ll share it anyway. Just in case someone here really likes anchovies.

Pasta with Spicy Anchovy Sauce and Thyme Bread Crumbs

Makes 6 servings. Recipe from Epicurious.

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 cups fresh bread crumbs (preferably from a baguette)
1/4 cup chopped dill or thyme
1 pound red onions, thinly sliced (3 cups)
1 (2-ounce) can flat anchovy fillets, drained and chopped
1 pound bucatini or perciatelli pasta (long tubular strands)
1/2 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS
Heat 1/4 cup oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat until it shimmers, then cook bread crumbs, stirring constantly, until deep golden and crisp, 6 to 8 minutes.

Transfer bread crumbs to a bowl and toss with dill and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and black pepper.

Wipe out skillet, then cook onions with 1/4 teaspoon salt in remaining 1/2 cup oil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until very soft, 12 to 15 minutes. Add anchovies and cook, mashing anchovies into onions, until dissolved.

Meanwhile, cook bucatini in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (2 tablespoons salt for 5 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking water, then drain pasta.

Stir red-pepper flakes and reserved water into anchovy sauce, then add pasta and toss to combine. Add about half of bread crumbs and toss to coat. Serve sprinkled with remaining bread crumbs.