Bread Pudding Letdown

Let me start by saying I LOVE BREAD PUDDING!!! But I don't like this one! Maybe I am a bread pudding purist...I like the original - raisins, cinnamon, rich bourbon sauce on top. And yes, I could have made bourbon sauce to go on top of this....but I didn't. I was expecting to love this recipe, it combines two of my favorite desserts - chocolate and bread pudding! But no. No, I do not like it. And I tried...I ate a huge chunk last night. Even after I decided I didn't like it I still continued to eat it until the huge chunk was gone!

I also am not going to have a chance to try to make this dessert into something that I would eat either, you see I managed to forget to put the bread pudding into the fridge before going to bed last night. So it sat on the counter spoiling as I snored in bed. Dumb, right? Couldn't believe it when I got up this morning and was making a pot of coffee and there it was...just sitting there. Who does that? I have no excuse, I wasn't super busy, super stressed, super drunk, super anything..... just plain forgot. I am kicking myself - SO hard. I had dreams of the ways that I would resurrect this bread pudding, vanilla bean cream sauce, bourbon sauce, chocolate orange ganache to drizzle on top to make it more enjoyable..... so many plans dashed by my inability to put a simple dish in the fridge. Seriously kicking myself hard. All those yummy sauces I want to make and nothing to put them on.....

But back to the bread pudding. Dorie's recipe is super simple. Since I love bread pudding I decided to make a whole recipe rather than halve it...also since I couldn't figure out how to halve 3 eggs! (Suggestions on how to do that would be greatly appreciated!)

I took some great photos of things before I baked it, and planned to take some pics today (in the beautiful sunshine) of the finished product since I baked it last night and not very photogenic in my fluorescent kitchen! Note to self....change bulbs to make nicer photos!

Here you go...

So that is it for the photos...sorry...no after shots....check out the other TWDr's for their posts and some awesome "after" shots! And thank you to Lauren, from Upper East Side Chronicle, for picking this weeks treat...I really thought I would like it!

Better luck next week....Chocolate Cream Tart coming right up!

Take Care,

Tania Love Big, Bake Often

TWD - Aborio Rice Pudding - Vanilla!

I know that it isn't a favourite of everyone, but I love rice pudding. It is comforting, warm, yummy and reminds me of being little in the winter. So now that it is getting cold here in CT and I am feeling so crummy, rice pudding is a great recipe for me this week. I took the time to check out the q&a on the TWD site and decided to use a little less milk and cook the rice in the milk a little longer. The other thing I did differently was I used my homemade vanilla sugar in it. I really liked seeing all the little black specks of vanilla in the milk as I brought it to a boil. And the smell was fantastic, being able to smell it even though I was stuffed up was quite wonderful.

I decided to not go the chocolate rice pudding route - I love just plain old vanilla rice pudding, don't mess with what you like.

Here are some pictures:

The Vanilla Sugar...

The specks in the milk - cool, eh?

The finished product, not a good shot, late in the day

I haven't tried it yet, not going to be finished its six hours before I go to bed (early). But I am really, really looking forward to it for breakfast.

The only thing I have to say about this recipe is that I wish it made more. I was surprised that I was able to put it in a cereal bowl. Not what I would call four servings.

Will let you know how it tastes tomorrow.

Love Big, Bake Often

T