March 01, 2018

Custard Bread Pudding

March 01, 2018/ Blair Cowan

I don't want to brag (yes I do), but I have figured out why people always talk about buying bread and milk when bad weather rolls in, and the answer is simple: bread pudding.

I know it's technically March and we all thought spring was on the way, but if you're stuck under a blanket of snow dealing with the Beast from the East, then this is the perfect thing for you to make today. I mean, I literally got out of bed this morning with no intention of making it, and half an hour later I had a heaping serving for breakfast with a cup of tea, and 10 minutes after that, I'm here telling you about it. If you did any kind of prep for this snow storm, you have the ingredients for this bread pudding. It makes as good of a dessert as it does a luxurious breakfast, and why are you even still here when you could be in your (ahem, warm) kitchen whipping this up?

This is a custard-heavy bread pudding, meaning that the finished product is basically a crisped, toasty layer of bread atop a thick, sweet custard you can sink your spoon into, which is why it doesn't require much bread. If you prefer a 'breadier', more rustic pudding similar to a baked french toast, you can amp up the bread by cutting it into chunks and filling your pan.

If your cupboard is not bare, you can dress this up with a spoonful of vanilla, almond extract, or orange blossom water. Add texture with ½ of an orange's worth of zest, or a small handful of dried cherries or even some toasted chopped pecans for crunch. Sprinkle the finished dish with cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom for a hint of spice, or just go for broke and have it plain- you won't regret it.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. Nothing this easy to make on a frigid day should receive anything less.

One year ago: Mocha Cake with Caramel Frosting
two years ago: Western Swiss Steak
three years ago (new!): Crepes

the recipe:

Custard Bread Pudding

the directions:

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F.
Butter your baking dish.
Toast the bread until just crisp but not yet browned.
Butter the toast, then brush with the 3 tbsp of milk and press into the bottom of your baking dish, slicing to fit if necessary.
Meanwhile beat eggs until foamy, then add sugar and beat until smooth and uniform.
Add milk and beat until well-blended.
If using vanilla or any other extracts, add them now.
Pour egg mixture over toast in baking dish and press bread back down, making sure it's fully saturated (it will float, but as long as it's saturated, you're good to go).
Bake 20-25 minutes until centre of dish just jiggles when you nudge it.
Sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired, and serve warm.

the ingredients:

Butter
2-3 slices of bread (3 slices of standard sandwich bread will neatly fill a 9-inch square baking dish, use less according to your plate size)
2 c + 3 tbsp milk, divided
3 eggs
1 c sugar
Optional garnishes according to your taste (see above for suggestions)

February 27, 2018

Victoria Swiss Roll, A Blogiversary Dessert

February 27, 2018/ Blair Cowan

This week marks three years since I started this blog, which means it's been three years of learning lessons the hard way (ALWAYS the hard way), three years of getting the side-eye from Judson on the weirder recipes even as he supports every dish I attempt to make, and three years of actively avoiding the recipes for swiss rolls sprinkled throughout the Recipe Box. But I've picked up a lot of skills in the last three years, and finally decided it was time to tackle a proper swiss roll in the style of a Victoria Sandwich. It was a 2018 goal of mine to learn to make a decent swiss roll, so in honour of the third anniversary of The Recipe Box Project, here we are!

I still make a lot of American and Americanesque recipes these days; a solid chunk of recipes in the box are probably identifiably American, and in a pinch without other plans to the contrary, I'll probably always fall back on the recipes I grew up with. But I'm always trying to broaden my kitchen repertoire and become more experienced with British and especially Scottish dishes. So to combine my roots with my adopted culture, here's a swiss roll made in the style of a Victoria Sandwich- the most quintessential of British desserts.

Loads of tiny bubbles, so make sure you tap that batter before you cook it!

See that filling oozing out? That's why you add extra powdered sugar if it's too thin!

A Victoria Sandwich is made of two layers of vanilla cake sandwiched with a filling of jam and a simple buttercream or whipped cream, the whole thing dusted with powdered sugar. I hate a Victoria Sandwich because I am a baptised member of the Church of All Possible Frosting, but using the flavours of a Victoria Sandwich in a swiss roll means you get all the necessary flavours but at a ratio of ¾ cake to ¼ frosting (this is the holy ratio when it comes to cakes, as far as I am concerned). What I'm saying is: this swiss roll is the perfect cake. A combination of British flavour and American techniques, beautifully presentable to your pals, your colleagues or anyone you need to impress, and you don't have to pipe or smooth any frosting!

Swiss rolls aren't really a thing in the US these days; before making this, I had never even had a swiss roll before, much less made one. I haven't quite perfected my own technique yet- if Mary Berry was invited over for tea, she'd point out that my swirl could be an awful lot tighter*- but I was still pretty stoked at how this one came out (a big improvement over the first time I tried to make one back in 2016... the whole thing fell apart into a pile of messy crumbs before I even got it out of the pan). Then a Scottish friend asked me what I've been cooking lately and I humble-bragged about how I had finally made a successful swiss roll and I guess she didn't realise that I was proud of it and had never made one before, so she rolled her eyes and told me a story about learning to make an amazing swiss roll way back when she was in primary school and how years later as a teenager, her home economics class was such a joke because they did nothing but make swiss rolls every day for weeks and it was the easiest class she's ever taken.

A few words of advice: if there was ever a recipe worth getting your mise-en-place done before you even start, it's this one. Make sure you've read through the recipe and have your pan prepared, your oven preheated and your dishtowel set aside and ready to be used. This isn't a difficult cake to make (and your frosting doesn't have to look stellar!), but you should be prepared for every step of the process before you begin or you'll end up with a cooled cake that won't roll properly. You can fill this cake with anything you want; a chocolate ganache with cherry jam would be amazing, or a citrusy fruit curd. I used raspberry jam and an almond-infused whipped cream cheese frosting to mimic a Victoria Sponge, and I have no regrets.

*No she wouldn't, because Mary Berry is a gem of a person and would never be so rude. But Paul Hollywood totally would.