Comfort baking at its finest [food]

[rebeccmeister]

or, It Came From the Pantry.

Y'all.

The Rustic Fruit Desserts cookbook came through again.

But I should start at the beginning.

scrottie and I keep a bag in the freezer for our bread ends and other bread loaf bits no longer suitable for sandwiches and cheesy toasts. Once a substantial quantity of bread ends has accumulated, S is the primary household architect of our bread puddings, which he embellishes with yummy fruits like blueberries and pineapples, and liquids such as coconut milk.

However, S has been rather busy lately, and he's still in California on his sailboat at the moment, so the bread ends have really been accumulating. I got to thinking I'd better attempt a bread pudding, myself. But I don't know anything about typical ratios of bread, eggs, and milk for such things, so I figured I should consult a cookbook. When I paged through Rustic Fruit Desserts over lunch, I found that it had exactly one bread pudding recipe, for a "Boozy dried cherry, chocolate, and hazelnut bread pudding." Looking over the ingredients, I thought, hmm. I have those dried cherries I made after picking cherries with mallorys_camera last July. And I have a strategic stockpile of hazelnuts from the Holmquist Hazelnut Orchards in the Pacific Northwest. Chocolate is a given in this household.

Scanning the ingredients, however, I noted that I don't have any brandy sitting around, nor did I have the cup of cream the recipe called for. I also lacked the motivation to go back outside again into the cold to obtain said items. Could I make do with other things? Another cup of milk for the cream? Cointreau for the brandy, though Cointreau is very much not brandy? Semisweet chocolate instead of bittersweet, since that's what I've got?

It seemed there wasn't much to lose from experimenting, so I did.



Another win for the Rustic Fruit Desserts cookbook! I can't say I'm surprised. I really appreciate that this bread pudding isn't overly sweet, and the orange notes from the Cointreau do indeed work perfectly well with the chocolate and cherry and hazelnut.

I'm glad to have reclaimed that bit of freezer space, too, for now.

The rest of the weekend cooking won't be nearly as exciting, but should keep me fed for the week, at least. That counts for a lot.

Comments

[yarnandglue]

Ooh that sounds SO good. That's a great idea to keep bread bits in the freezer! I might have to start doing that myself...

[soemand]

🤤

Thanks for the recommendation on the book.

[mallorys_camera]

Using Cointreau is inspired! 😀

[rebeccmeister]

Our liquor collection is sitting on top of the china hutch, which is on the wall that I face when I'm eating at the dining room table. That bottle of Cointreau has been up there, 3/4 full, for several years by now! I don't have any particular issue with having various types of liquor on hand, but I do like to see them go to various good uses now and then!