A More Refined Version: Bread Pudding

Playlist: Evanescence—The Open Door, Fallen (must be something about this time of year), Rammstein—Rosenrot, Marilyn Manson—Eat Me, Drink Me, Rob Zombie—The Sinister Urge, Clan of Xymox—The Best of Clan of Xymox

To complement this musical mélange, I bring you a dessert, the base for which is a  mélange of breads.  I apparently took it upon myself to owe you all earlier this year.  I made something similar in April.

Pumpkin Butterscotch Bread Pudding

Works cited:

All Recipes, http://allrecipes.com/recipe/butterscotch-bread-pudding/

Claessens, Sharon, “Peter’s Pumpkin Bread Pudding,” in  The One-Day-at-a-Time Low-Fat Cookbook (New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1996), 216-7.

McKenna, Erin, “Bread Pudding,” in BabyCakes Covers the Classics: Gluten-Free Vegan Recipes from Donuts to Snickerdoodles (New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2010), 102-3.

Chunks:

8 cups old (vegan and gluten-free, do I have to say this?) bread or cake, (defrosted if frozen), cut into 1-inch cubes (I used parts of cranberry almond bundt cake, buckwheat cherry scones, coconut-chocolate chip bars, and grape olive oil cake)

3/4 cup butterscotch chips

Custard:

1 16-ounce can light coconut milk

2 cups pure pumpkin puree

2 tablespoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons organic sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used the leftover cinnamon sugar from rolling pumpkin cake donuts)

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

In a large bowl, mix the bread and butterscotch chips.  

In a blender or food processor, blitz the custard ingredients until uniformly combined.  Pour the custard on top of the bread and butterscotch chip mixture.  Mix gently to coat all pieces evenly.

Let sit for 20 minutes.  Five minutes into the sit, grease an 8*8-inch glass baking pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Pour everything into the pan and bake for 35 minutes or until the custard is slightly cracked and puffy, it doesn’t jiggle in the centre, and some of the bread points are browned.  If you're concerned about it bubbling over, place pan on a foil-lined baking sheet during baking.  Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

Serve hot, cold, or indifferent, or for delicious overkill, with vice cream.

Ya ever notice how on home design shows or in paint company ads in women’s magazines, designers feature pumpkin- or school- or Swedish-barn-coloured dining/living rooms?  Not only is this dessert a more refined version of my chocolate cryogenic strata (I could serve it to my aunt and uncle!), its taste in colour matches the mainstream.  Who says what the mainstream likes is “refined?”  Depends on who you take to be your mainstream. 

When she tried it, my aunt said “MMMM!!!” and asked what makes it taste so good.  I replied, “Magic.”  She also said she'd gladly eat it for breakfast--score!  

Happy Halloween Month, everyone!