I had a problem to solve. Over the summer, we ate a lot of hamburgers, but instead of
buying hamburger buns, I cut rounds out of slices of bread to make our own
buns.
In order to not be wasteful, we kept collecting the crusts
and saving them in the freezer. We
had no idea what we were going to do with them.
I thought I might make croutons, but I wasn't sold on the
idea. The spelt bread we eat is
more on the sweet side and I prefer my croutons to be something like sourdough
or rustic Italian type bread.
So the crusts languished in the freezer until we had a full
gallon zippy bag full of them, plus some.
Then a week or so ago, I realized we had a surplus of
another ingredient. Since our G
wasn't drinking as much milk as he used to, we had a lot of milk that needed
using.
Bread.
Milk. It's getting to be
Fall. Bingo! Bread pudding!! It would be the perfect application for
the sweet-ish bread and the milk we needed to use. Besides, my favorite part of the bread pudding is the crusts
of bread. They have a bit more
tooth to them and I love the firm, chewy texture the crust gets in a bread
pudding. So this was going to be
perfect!
I was just about ready to bake, having a lot of time on my
hands now that I'm among the unemployed, when a trip to Trader Joe's gave me
the final piece of inspiration I needed.
They had in their freezer case little two-serving boxes of Pumpkin Bread Pudding.
I felt as if divine light suddenly shone upon me. I had to make this!
So I started looking for recipes. At first it was difficult to find a recipe that called for
regular bread. The first couple of
recipes that came up on my Google search called for pumpkin bread as the bread
component. That certainly wouldn't
do.
But as with anything on Google, search long enough and
you'll find what you are looking for.
Still, I ended up with three recipes up in my browser,
taking a bit from each before I settled upon my own.
Most of what I ended up with is thanks to this
recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I
also plan on making the Creme Anglaise from Bobby Flay's recipe, but I've got a
lot of cooking and baking ahead of me this weekend, so it may wait a couple of
days. And a nod to the Betty
Crocker recipe, too, because I didn't want to use just a part of a can of
pumpkin.
Pumpkin Bread Pudding
8 cups of spelt bread
crusts, dried and broken into pieces (or whole pieces of any kind of bread,
cubed or torn into pieces and left out to go stale)
3 cups of milk
4 eggs and 2 egg yolks
1 small can of pumpkin
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
a couple of dashes
ground cloves
1 cup sugar
Preheat oven to
350°F. Butter the bottom and sides
of a 13X9 inch baking pan. Put the
bread pieces into the prepared pan.
In a large bowl, beat
the eggs briefly. Add the milk,
pumpkin, salt, spices and sugar and whisk to combine.
Pour custard over the bread
pieces and mush things about until all the bread has been coated. Ideally, the bread will be mostly
submerged in the custard. If
you've got bits sticking up, that's okay. That means you'll have lovely crispy
bits on the top.
Bake for 30-40 minutes
or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. (If you're baking in a glass dish, consider reducing the temperature to 325.)
Enjoy for breakfast
with some honey goat cheese or for dessert with some creme anglaise or whipped
cream or ice cream. Or whatever
you like with pumpkin.
I will say two things.
I think I will add some maple syrup or some brown sugar next time. The idea of some depth to the sweetness
is appealing to me.
Also, I think a little bourbon is in order (for the pudding,
not necessarily for me). That is
one part of the Smitten Kitchen recipe that I didn't take to heart and I wish I
had. :o)
Now the only dilemma I have is how we're going to eat it
all. But that is a good problem to
have. And I know I have friends
who will help should it be necessary.
If you make this and alter it at all, please let me know. I would love to hear what you think and what you do with it!
Happy Fall!
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