Showing posts with label Puddings. Show all posts

Sweet Almond Bread Pudding with Blackberry Sauce

Sunday, 30 August 2020

At the weekend I like to pull out the stops a bit and make my husband a delicious dessert. We only ever very rarely eat dessert the rest of the week. If we do have anything at all it will be pots of yogurt or once in a blue moon a sneaky mini-magnum bar or a two finger kitkat.

This weekend I had some stale brioche bread that I wanted to use up and so I decided to make a small batch bread pudding, perfectly sized just for two. Sweet Almond Bread Pudding. And I made a sauce to serve with it as well, a blackberry sauce. Two generous servings of decadent deliciousness.

You can use any stale brioche that you might have in the house. I had a stale poppyseed swirled brioche that I had gotten with my grocery order. It was so yummy, but inevitably we did not get it all used up.

It was the perfect bread to use in this pudding. Just rich enough. Not too sweet. And the poppyseed swirl worked well with the other flavours.

You could use any stale bread really. Stale croissants. Stale biscuits. Stale hot dog buns. Stale baguettes. All bread once it is stale is quite suitable for using in a bread pudding.

The reason we use stale bread is because it will soak up the egg custard mixure more readily. Fresh soft bread just doesn't have the ability to absorb liquids in quite the same way and you will have a soggy finish. Not good.

As it is you will need to dry/toast the bread in a slow oven for ten minutes to dry it out even more. You don't want it crisp, but you do want it quite dry.

Dry enough to be able to absorb all of that rich custard and trust me, this is one mega-rich custard, but not at all in a bad way . . . but in a very good way indeed! It is simply sugar, egg yolks and heavy/double cream!

Rich and decadent and flavoured with both pure vanilla and almond extracts. Simple flavours, with astonishing results. I could eat that custard with a spoon.

The cream is heated first with half of the sugar. You don't want it to boil. You just heat it until it begins to steam and bubbles show up all around the edges. Boiling might curdle it.

Let cool just a bit and then whisk it into two large free range egg yolks which you have beaten together with the remaining sugar and the flavourings.

You have to do this a little bit at a time or else you will cook the eggs, which is something you really don't want to do. I start by drizzling it in just a tiny bit at a time until I have about half the cream whisked in.

At that point it is safe to whisk in the remainder of the cream/sugar mixture. That completes the custard. Oh but it does smell delicious and we are really only just beginning!!

You want to divide your dry bread cubes between two well buttered ramekins. I used two Le Creuset ramekins that I got a few years back. Each one holds a generous cup full of liquid.

The custard is then divided between the two ramekins. You must press the bread down into the custard until it is covered, then you play a bit of a waiting game while the bread absorbs that rich custard.

The puddings are baked in a Bain Marie, which is a fancy name for a water bath. You put them into a baking dish and then fill it halfway full with boiling water. This helps to keep the puddings moist and helps them to bake properly without drying out too much. You want them a bit jiggly.

I do have to laugh when I think back to when I first started cooking. I have always had a great interest in food and cooking and recipes. I was watching cooking shows when I was still a teenager and at school.

My mother went back to work when my brother started school. She had housekeepers for about a year, but they didn't really work out. After that I was old enough that I became the one in charge of the house while my parents were both at work. I was twelve.

I had some household chores to do, my younger siblings to watch and supper to get started. Mostly I was just reheating what my mother had already prepared but every once in a while I got to actually cook. Especially once I had started Home Economics classes at school and knew a little bit about what I was doing.

I slowly through the years gained skills and knowlege. Some gleaned from friends and much from watching television and reading magazines. I thought I was quite capable back then, and perhaps I was to a degree, but I would have had a puzzled look on my face had anyone asked me what a Bain Marie was! (Despite how much I thought I knew!)

It was really not much at all in comparison to what I know now, and most of that I learnt by doing and growing and cooking. Raising a large family taught me much, and of course I eventually went to Culinary College which taught me more.

In retrospect I should have gone to Culinary School out of high school instead of secretarial. My cooking skills have served me very well through the years, much more than my secretarial skills have done, with the exception of typing.

But back to the pudding. They are done when they are nicely puffed and just a bit jiggly. They will be golden brown on top, the nuts having toasted and the sugar nicely glazing the tops.

While they are baking you can make your blackberry sauce. If you haven't got blackberries, feel free to substitute raspberries in their place. They will be just as delicious. Another name for the sauce is a berry coulis.

Its lovely, not too sweet, but slightly tart and coloured like a jewel. I tried to be a bit fancy and spread some beneath the puddings in a pattern before I set the puddings on top. That only lasted until I popped the puddings onto the pattern. Oh well . . . best laid plans and all that.

These puddings are best served warm with the cold blackberry sauce. You can make the puddings ahead of time, keeping them wrapped tightly for up to three days in the refrigerator. (This makes them perfect for celebratory dinners!)

Gently reheat to warm. (I would steam them for a few minutes in top of a double boiler.) Serve warm with this fabulous blackberry coulis, these are puddings worth more than an ounce of applause!

Sweet Almond Bread Pudding with Blackberry Sauce

Yield: 2

Author: Marie Rayner

prep time: 15 Mcook time: 1 hourtotal time: 1 H & 15 M

Simple to make and yet outrageously delicious!

Ingredients:

For the pudding:

4 ounces of stale Brioche, cut into 1 inch pieces (about 1 heaped cup)
1 cup (240ml) heavy cream
6 TBS granulated sugar
2 large free range egg yolks
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

To top pudding:

2 TBS flaked almonds
1 tsp finely granulated sugar

For the blackberry sauce:

2 cups (170g) of blackberries, fresh or frozen
1/3 cup (65g) sugar
1 TBS fresh lemon juice

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 160*C/325*F/ gas mark 3. Butter two (8 ounce) glass baking ramekins really well. Set aside.
Cut the bread into 1 inch cubes. Place onto a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove.
Heat the cream with half of the sugar just until bubbles appear around the edges and it is steaming. Do not allow to boil. Keep warm.
Whisk the egg yolks with the remaining sugar and extracts until smooth. Slowly whisk in the warm cream mixture a little bit at a time to temper the eggs. Once the eggs have heated you can just whisk in the remainder of the cream.
Divide the bread cubes between both ramekins. Strain half of the custard over each ramekin and lightly press down so that the bread is soaking. Leave to soak for 20 minutes.
At the end of that time put the ramekins into a baking dish with sides, large enough to hold both of them. Sprinkle the top of each with 1 TBS of flaked almonds and half the sugar.
Fill the baking dish to halfway up the sides of the ramekins with boiling water.
Place into the oven and bake for one hour, or until the custard is set.
While the puddings are baking make the sauce. Put the blackberries into a saucepan with the sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a simmer. Leave to simmer for 2 minutes. Blitz until smooth with an immersion blender. (or a regular blender) Strain through a sieve.
Unmold the warm puddings onto a dessert plate and drizzle some of the sauce over top. Refrigerate any leftovers.

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Sweet Almond Bread Pudding with Blackberry Sauce

Buttermilk Lemon Puddings for Two

Sunday, 2 August 2020

I think one of my absolute favourite flavours is that of lemon. I could eat lemon anything until it comes out my ears and then some.

One of my favourite lemon desserts has always been Buttermilk Lemon Puddings. These are delicious lemon puddings which upon baking, just like magic, separate into two distinct layers . . . one a lush lemon custard and the other a fabulously tart lemon cake.

I am not sure how the magic works, only that it does. I have seen this dessert referred to by many names. Lemon Puddle Pudding is one of them.

Lemon Sponge pudding is another. People can get quite fanciful with their naming of it, but it is all just the same thing. An exquisitely delicious lemon pudding, meant to be enjoyed!

There is nothing about that not to love. Nothing. My husband, he's not so fussed about lemon anything. I think he just tolerates it, which means when I make lemon anything I am stuck with lots of leftovers.

I know, it is hard for me to believe as well. How could anyone on earth not enjoy lemon??? It just doesn't seem natural.

Having lemon leftovers should not really be a problem, unless you are trying to watch your weight and maybe even take off a few pounds.

An extra couple of servings of anything lemon in this house is dangerous to me. I am always trying to watch my sugar intake and my waistline. Like any woman I suppose.

Whats a gal to do but to try to downsize things and that has been my labour lately. I have really been trying to get things down to feed just two so that I can cut down on our household waste and on my own "waist."

Its not that hard to do if you know what you are doing, and I do know what I am doing. Thankfully.

This is a dessert I used to make fairly often when entertaining at the Manor down south. I think lemon is a common love of ladies.

I did lemon desserts more than anything for their dinner parties and luncheons. I think one of the favourite ones I did was Frozen Lemon Souffles. They were magnificent.

For the regular sized dessert, you can find it here. Lemon Puddle Pudding. That serves 4 to 6 people. You can see how that would be rather dangerous in a house where only one loves lemon.

Its not exactly the same, I'll admit, but close enough . . .and sometimes close enough is good enough.

This differs in a couple ways. One, in that it uses buttermilk instead of regular milk. Using buttermilk lends a particular dense richness to the dish.

Butter milk also has a lovely tangy quality which goes very well with lemon.

If you have no buttermilk, take one TBS of lemon juice and put it in a cup along with 5 TBS whole milk and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes until it clabbers.

This makes for even more lemony flavour I think. Can there ever be too much? Perhaps but in this case, it works well.

The other difference is that this uses plain flour instead of self rising flour. Because it is only for two servings, it did not need the oomph of any leavening.

The beaten egg white is enough to make it puff up beautifully, almost souffle like. It will sink when it starts to cool down however, so don't be alarmed.

The cake on the top is nice and buttery, and beautifully lemony. Mine cracked a bit on the top, which is not at all unsual.

I probably baked it for just a touch too long. You want it to have a gentle wobble. Not alot of a wobble, just a tiny bit.

The cake itself is nice and light in texture . . . and beneath . . .you have the pudding layer, with an almost curd like finish to it.

Don't get me started on Lemon Curd. It is just about my favourite thing on earth. If I could only bring one thing to a dessert island it would have to be a jar of lemon curd. No argument.

A rich creamy lemon curd . . . so lush and so delicious. There is a perfect layer of this on the bottom of this dessert. Cake on the top, lemon curd on the bottom.

The two together are heavenly bliss. This should be called Heavenly Bliss Lemon Cake for Two . . . .

Normally I would have a dollop of cream or clotted cream on top but today we had none, so settled for a sweet dusting of icing sugar and some raspberries.

Oh boy but this was some good. And it gave me a chance to use my ceramic spoons. I only ever very rarely use them because I don't want to risk them breaking!