Another recipe in the summer gaining series, this time brought to you by Eagledancer, a long time encourager and passionate cook. I haven't tried this one yet, but, judging from the amount of weight Eagle has packed onto his partner, I imagine it's as tasty as it is fattening. In his own words:
"Since we now live in Arizona, I don’t really do “Summer” recipes. Here in the “Valley of the Sun” (which is what the better business bureau calls the “Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area) we only have two seasons…Spring and Hell. The SigO tells me it’s worth having 2 months of Hell in exchange for 10 months of Spring. It’s common for us to get triple digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures by May, and it hit 115 or above a number of times last year.
All the locals are in awe about what a mild Summer we’re currently having, given the fact it hadn’t hit 100 until the first week of June.
Here’s a recipe that has the three essential ingredients for the best “jiggle” factor when it come to a happy belly—fat, sugar, and carbs. It helped add inches to the SigO, who has a weakness for bread (not to mention, for fat and sugar…). Since he’s gone from size 30 jeans to size 38s, and those are getting tight, he’s insisted I cook “low fat/low calorie dinners” and then he makes peanut-butter and honey sandwiches 90 minutes later for his 4th or 5th meal of the day, which he tends to scarf down in the kitchen before rushing back to the TV.
This is my modification of an old fashioned treat, bread pudding. I should also mention as an American Indian, we have a variation of this on our reservation. We call it “Tsoopa” in our language. It’s made with Pueblo Indian bread which is baked in our outdoor “beehive” shaped ovens. This bread is a regular part of our traditional diet, but since it has no preservatives, if you don’t eat it quickly, it tends to go stale in the dry humidity, and quite “hard.” As a result, a recipe for “stale” bread for us is very practical. The main difference to me is that the Tsoopa is made with cheese, so it’s not considered a dessert. As a result, I had to learn about non-Indian Bread Pudding from a non-Native sister-in-law from the American South. I like to add Kalua, because I think it makes sweet things taste better, the way bacon makes almost anything taste better.
In my version, I use 2 cups of heavy cream, which provides a base of over 1,600 calories and over 170 grams of fat to throw in with over 400 calories from the ¼ cup of butter, not counting the additional calorie help from the bread, sugar and eggs. To be honest, while I’m including for completion’s sake an additional recipe for a topping, I almost never make it because most of the bread pudding is eaten by the SigO immediately after I’ve taken it from the oven and it’s too warm to pour the sauce over.
At one point, the SigO and I were in a Seattle bakery outlet store buying loaves of bread at an incredible savings, and he mentioned to the cashier, “This bread has put 20 pounds on me!” Of course, that was about 60 pounds ago…"
Eagledancer Bread Pudding
Ingredients:
2 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark, depending on taste preference)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract1 tablespoon Kalua coffee liquor
3 cups bread, torn into small pieces. (French bread works well…however, I’ll often buy a nice loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread to use, in which case I’d eliminate the extra cinnamon. Don’t stress on the type of bread—after all, one of purposes of Bread Pudding is to use up stale bread. On the other hand, I buy the cinnamon-raisin bread to use for the pudding, and I’m not going to wait for it to go stale…)
1/2 cup raisins (if I’m using the cinnamon-raisin bread, I’ll cut the amount of additional raisins in half…)
Directions:
1. In medium saucepan, over medium heat, heat the cream just until film forms over top. Combine butter and cream, stirring until butter is melted. Cool to lukewarm.
2. Combine sugar, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and Kalua. Beat with whisk (or an electric mixer) until smooth. Slowly add cream mixture.
3. Place bread in a lightly greased 1 1/2 quart casserole.
4. Sprinkle with raisins if desired. Pour batter on top of bread.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes or until set. I do the old-fashioned thing of poking it after 45 minutes with a wooden toothpick to see if it comes out “clean.” If the pudding is sticking to the toothpick it needs to bake a little more. Serve warm.
If you make the sauce to put on top of your bread pudding, adjust the sugar in the bread pudding recipe, change it to 1/3 cups sugar (the sauce has the other 1/3 cup in it).
Bread Pudding Sauce
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
2 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. flour
dash of salt
Directions:
Mix everything together and bring to a boil for 3 - 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Set aside for 5 minutes, then pour on warm bread pudding. The reason I don’t use heavy cream in this one is because you need to boil it, and milk is less likely to scorch.
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