Bread Pudding

As a Methodist minister, I move around somewhat frequently, per direction of our Bishop. So, one outpost my husband and I were sent to happened to be in one of the most beautiful places on God's green earth, Greenville Junction, Maine.  What a lovely place in which to minister! My husband and I loved living there and being in ministry there.

Greenville Junction, Maine is where I encountered my first experience with bread pudding. Honest-to-the-Apostle-Pete, I had never baked a bread pudding before this. A parishioner, Linda Carpenter (thankyou, Linda!) gave me her recipe for bread pudding, and I've been in love with this old-fashioned dessert ever since. It doesn't hurt that my husband is quite fond of bread pudding, so he was happy to oblige by eating it!

I like this particular recipe for the surprise fruit. I'd never tried a bread pudding recipe with anything but raisins until now. The apple compliments the raisins beautifully. This is a wonderfully egg-y recipe, and fits in an 8x8 pan, so I don't have to do any reducing of the recipe from a 9x13, which is what I typically find this recipe to require for baking. I pulled it out of the oven precisely at the 30 minute time frame, and it looked a wee bit dry on top, so I poured some light cream over it all, and slipped it back in the oven for a little bit, to soften the top. It absorbed nicely, but you do need to watch it, so it doesn't dry again. I love the way the sprinkled raisins look on top, and the sweet bite of the apple layered inside the bread triangles. I also think the triangles are kinda fun! It makes for a pretty presentation of the dessert to table before dishing out.

The recipe suggests serving hot with French vanilla ice cream. Yum, yes!

Comments

Post a Comment

I welcome your comments. Please be kind and considerate. Thanks for stopping by!

Popular posts from this blog

Lunchtime Gloop

Image
Remember the first recipe I tried? Submitted by the mother of Astronaut Jessica Meir? Well, the cook behind today's lunch menu is famous, but don't wear yourself out trying to think up names of famous Maine cooks. Easiest recipe in this cookbook? Yes. No-fail? Yes. Going to win culinary awards around the globe? No. But when it comes to comfort food, I'm guessing this might be one of author Stephen King's favorites. I followed Mr. King's recipe exactly. Except where he says to use Franco American Spaghetti. Could not for the life of me find that brand name, so finally bought Campbell's Spaghettios. Got home, looked up Franco American and found that, yes, you guessed it, Campbell's bought out Franco American and kept the Spaghettios. Spaghettios were introduced in 1965. What kid doesn't love those little circular bits of pasta soaking in a tomato and cheese bath? And somehow, according to the writing on the can, they manage to pack 20% of your daily vegeta
Read more

Maine Party Chicken

Image
 As I read the ingredients for this recipe, I had a flashback to my childhood. My parents enjoyed having friends over, and my mother was not a chef by any means, but she would look for recipes that were easy to prepare for a crowd. This is one of the recipes she used to make.  I used to be a can-of-soup cook, like my mom, when a white sauce was called for. But since I learned how to do a bechamel, oh my, there is no going back. Not that there is anything wrong with an easy pop-top cream of mushroom soup once in awhile. It does the trick, and you just tuck this dish in the fridge overnight and do a three-hour bake the next day, which gives you time to focus on putting up party banners, or whatever, for your company. I'm not sure I care for the dried beef in this dish. Awfully salty. But the bacon, when you do a slow bake, smells fantastic for three solid hours. Can you say Anticipation?! I say, when you go big, go easy. Try this recipe for a crowd. You'll be glad you did!
Read more

Dad's Bean Hole Beans

Image
This recipe presented two distinct challenges. Firstly, I live in a parsonage and I'm not likely to receive permission to dig up the lawn just to try my hand at cooking bean hole beans. Secondly, we are now solidly in winter, and even if I had opportunity to dig a hole, it's not the right time of year. So I allowed as how baking the beans in the oven would have to do for now, and we'll see what summer brings. Who knows, maybe the church will want to offer a bean hole bean "suppah" as a fundraiser. The picture shows off pea beans, and yet the recipe calls for yellow-eye beans. I must say, were I pressed to pick a favorite bean recipe, I did so love the Baked Yellow-Eye Beans (see blog). But when it came time to try this recipe, there were no yellow-eye beans in the pantry. So I used pea beans. I do like pea beans, but I have to wonder if these beans were getting a little old. They seemed to take longer to cook. I checked the difference between the Yellow-Eye Bean r
Read more