Comfort food, round two! I don’t know about you, but I ate my feelings this week, and I ate them in the form of the most comforting foods that exist. I’m talking soup, pasta and, perhaps the greatest comfort food of all time, bread pudding. Eating bread pudding is the food version of getting a really strong hug, or wearing a Snuggie, or having a purring cat on your lap. It might even be all three at the same time. I prescribe bread pudding for breakups, deaths and especially mind-boggling election results.
To all the bread pudding haters out there, I urge you to reconsider for two reasons. First, you’ll notice below that this recipe contains only a half cup of sugar. Half a cup! That’s it! I know a lot of people think bread pudding is always sweet and cloying so I’m telling you up front – this one isn’t. It’s just sweet enough to be a dessert, and the flavor is more than just eggs, milk, vanilla, which brings me to my second point. Which is – bourbon! Don’t you love it? Well, if you think it belongs in a glass, neat, I’ll tell you it also belongs in bread pudding. With vanilla and almond extracts. Together, these three flavors make a very complex and cozy dessert, one that I’ve been eating in my pajamas for a week now.
Personally, my favorite thing about bread pudding is the texture. If you use good stale bread, you end up with a really custardy inside, where you can still see the marks from the different pieces of bread smushed together, but it tastes like an eggy pudding. Like French toast tops! The layer of bread that bobs on top of the custard gets nice and toasty and golden, creating the perfect contrast to the pudding within.
Bread pudding is simply one of those foods that is so much more than the sum of its parts. I mean, it could not be more simple – stale bread, milk/cream, eggs. But when the entire world feels more complicated and disconcerting than ever, I think that hearty and unapologetically simple breading pudding might be just the antidote.
Ingredients
- 8 oz. baguette (or egg-rich bread), preferably stale
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 4 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon bourbon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
Instructions
- Have a nonreactive 9x5-inch loaf pan on hand, as well as a roasting pan large enough to hold the loaf pan. Line the roasting pan with a double thickness of paper towels. Fill a teakettle with water and put it on to boil; when the water boils, turn off the heat.
- Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes. If the bread is stale, put it in the loaf pan. If it is not stale, spread it out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat and bake it in a 350°F oven to "stale" it for 10 minutes, then put it in the pan.
- Bring the milk and cream just to a boil.
- Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, yolks, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a bowl. Still whisking, slowly drizzle in about one quarter of the hot milk mixture- this will temper, or warm, the eggs so they don't curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining milk. Add the bourbon and vanilla and almond extracts and whisk gently to blend. Rap the bowl against the counter to pop any bubbles that might have formed, then pour the custard over the bread and press the bread gently with the back of a spoon to help cover it with the liquid. Cover the pan lightly with wax paper and leave it on the counter, giving the bread the back-of-the-spoon treatment every now and then, for 1 hour.
- Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Discard the wax paper and cover the pan snugly with a piece of aluminum foil; poke about 5 holes in the foil. Slide the pan into the oven and very carefully pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the pudding pan. Bake the pudding for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for 15 minutes more, or until the pudding is puffed and golden and a knife inserted deep into the center comes out clean. Transfer the baking pan to a rack and cool the pudding until it is just warm, or until it reaches room temperature.
Notes
https://www.thekitchenchronicles.com/2016/11/18/bourbon-bread-pudding/
