Easter Bread Bread Pudding

So this evening while cleaning the kitchen while cooking dinner, I lamented over the thought of throwing away an entire loaf of this weekend's Easter bread, now stale. As I opened the trash I thought "gee, what a waste".  Then it hit me.  A beautiful, but simple, fantastic, and exciting revelation: Bread pudding.

One of the amazing things about bread putting is that it takes something that otherwise wouldn't be used and makes it into something beautiful delicious.  Not only does my husband love Easter bread, but he loves bread pudding.  Major wife bonus points.  (Especially since dinner was only going to be pasta.)

Unfortunately, there aren't any pictures of the prep.  Such is the case of things that have been turning out quite well lately- I never know what to expect of them. And all the things I expect to share with you, documenting along the way, turn out acceptable, but not share-worthy.

So needless to say, here is the recipe, without any pictures of the process.

Easter Bread Bread Pudding

Makes one 8x8 pan bread pudding

Ingredients

1 Nine-inch loaf easter bread, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 eggs

2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

2 cups milk

2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.

Whisk together the eggs, butter, milk, sugar, and vanilla.  (If you do it in this order it will keep your butter from seizing.  However, it will still be delicious if you don't and your butter seizes.  Not like I did that or anything...)

Place one layer of cubes snugly into an 8x8 baking dish.  Pour egg mixture over top until just covered.  if you have more egg mixture and more bread, add another layer of bread and pour more egg mixture over top.  For me this ratio was just about perfect.  The egg mixture shouldn't be way over the top of the bread, so if your loaf is smaller, use less egg mixture.

Bake for about an hour, until the top is browned and the mixture has soaked in a good bit.  I used a clear baking dish that allowed me to see that the sides were browning as well as some of the custard soaked in and cooked.

I severed my bread pudding with a Jack Daniels sauce, but I think in the future I would make a Grand Marnier sauce to serve with it.

Easter Bread Bread Pudding
It may not look beautiful, but there is a beauty in keeping something from going to waste.

How do you like to 'upcycle' leftovers?

On the Farm: Growing Early Sweet Corn

Somehow I let almost two weeks to by since my last post.  Definitely a sign that it's planting time.  And while I may not be doing the planting every day, my workload increases with increased laundry needs and picking up some of the things my husband would help with when he was working shorter days (like cooking....which takes me forever).

I'll try to do better with my posting.  I promise.

Last week, my husband and father-in-law planted sweet corn.  (Hooray!)  As long as everything goes well, it should be ready around the middle of July.  (What a long wait!)  However, it's still pretty cold outside for sweet corn.  To get sweet corn in the ground so early, it must be covered to stay warm and protect it, you know, from things like the other night's snow.

So Sunday we spent the morning covering the newly planted sweet corn.  I managed to sneak a few pictures to share with you...

No sign of delicious sweet corn yet, but it's in there!

We started with two large rolls of Covertan, a very thin, breathable fabric that helps maintain a warm atmosphere to allow seed to germinate but also allows water to pass through, a benefit that plastic doesn't offer.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the rolls (large, but since the fabric is so thin, certainly not as large as you'd think for a 500-foot roll).

Nor did I get a picture of the process we used to unroll them since I was hard at work securing one side of the fabric by shoveling soil at intervals to prevent the fabric from flying across the field in the windy morning (a task that sounds way easier than really is to accomplish!). 

After the cover was unrolled and generally secured, we went back down the row and insured that only the very edge layer was under the dirt.  My job was to ensure it was straight (well, as straight as the row of corn) and hold while it was re-secured with dirt by my husband.

His father and sister were right behind, helping to fill in the gaps so that the edge was extremely secure.

The next step was pulling the stacked layers across the field to cover the entire planting since the fabric was folded onto itself.

Once the fabric was stretched across the field, it was time to secure it again.  This time I shoveled while someone else lined up the cover.

Here you can see how thin the fabric is.
Yes, that's a large rock by my shoulder.

Then we did it all again with another 500-foot roll.

1,000 foot section of sweet corn covered.

The corn here is about enough to satisfy the demand of the market for about a week.  So we'll be doing this again very soon!

Baking Blunder- Nougat

I set off today to make crackers, use up more of those carrots, and bake a cake.  Toward the end of the afternoon I realized that I didn't want to clean I had some extra time so I decided to try a peanut butter nougat which has been on my list of things to try.

And thus I present my first baking blunder (well, first to this blog, definitely not my first fail....)

Nougat involves whipping hot syrup into a whipped egg white.  I do this frequently for some of my favorite frostings, however I think the mixer is entirely too big for adding syrup to just one egg white.

Note the strands of sugar that look 'cob-webby' around the whisk and the globs of hardened syrup on the side (which I later actually cut myself on while trying to wash the bowl!).  And while it's hard to see, in the bottom by the end of the whip is a HUGE glob of syrup that just swirled around the whites...I plan to try this again, hopefully with better results next time..

Carrot Cake Pancakes

So a couple weeks ago I bought some baby carrots wholeheartedly believing I'd enjoy them dipped in hummus as a healthy snack.  (I was so wrong).  So rather than admit that I was wrong to my husband who questioned my purchase of three pounds of baby carrots, I set out to use them up.

Carrot Cake Pancakes- a sweet idea for Easter breakfast!

These pancakes we had for dinner (I'm a huge advocate for breakfast at dinner...or breakfast for breakfast...you know, whenever I make the time to make breakfast...) were inspired by a menu item I saw at work. (I think we're in for a lot of food inspiration now that I work at a food service company...you know, in addition to living on a produce farm.  All I think about is food now.  It's fun!).  I pulled the recipe from here.  These pancakes are not very sweet so I'd definitely serve them with the cream cheese mixture and consider adding the raisins to the batter in the future as well.

I loved the carrot shredding tip from Cookie + Kate's version of this recipe.  I'll never again dread making carrot cake because this was so easy.  And yes, I'd much rather wash the food processor than shred carrots (along with my fingers) on a box grater.

Grate carrots using the shredder plate.

Then switch to the normal blade.

Ta-da! Finely grated carrots!

Wet ingredients, dry ingredients, and carrots.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, then mix.  Do not mix thoroughly.  Some flour showing is okay.
Then add the carrots.

Let rest for five minutes.

Thankful for my griddle which has saved many pancakes from burning.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

Makes about 15 small pancakes

Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch of ginger

freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional, I used this)

raisins (optional, I did not use them, but would if I made it again to add some sweetness)

1 large egg

2 tablespoons packed brown sugar

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups shredded carrots (about 1 pound of carrots)

Directions:

In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, walnuts (if using) and raisins (if using).

In a separate bowl, mix the egg, brown sugar, buttermilk, and vanilla extract together.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine.  Add the carrots and mix to combine.  Let sit for five minutes.

While batter is resting, preheat a griddle (or a cast iron pan).  Grease with butter or oil and spoon small pancakes onto the preheated surface.  These take a little longer to cook than traditional pancakes and there is less sugar in them than a normal pancake so they won't burn so quickly either.  I let mine sit for probably 3-4 minutes on each side, but it will vary if you're using a different surface or temperature.

Cream Cheese Filling
Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Beat the cream cheese and butter together.  Add powdered sugar and beat until smooth.  Add vanilla and milk and beat.

April Fool's Fails

I was lamenting over the fact that I didn't have a fun April Fool's Day recipe to share with you after my attempt this weekend just didn't work out how I wanted to.  While it looked nice, the flavor wasn't quite right and it's in need of some tweaking before I can fully fool my target.  So, I'll be keeping that under wraps while I give it another go (or several more attempts) but do promise to share once I have it figured out.  Besides, pranking someone on a day on which they do not expect it is way more effective, isn't it?

However, King Arthur Flour posted some great baking blunders on their blog today.  Looking through my photos on my phone, I couldn't believe I didn't have ANY to share with you!  None of the many times cakes didn't turn out of the pan right or that evening I wasn't paying attention as I adjusted a rack and put a cake in the oven on a VERY uneven rack (what a MESS!).

Thank you, eBay, for being the only
place with a similar photo

So in the future, I promise to share my failures with you too.  In fact, failures sometimes make for the best creations.  I know it sounds cliché, but it's true.  Several years ago, my mom created what we now fondly call 'crumble cake' when she dropped a cake coming out of the oven.  Salvaging what was left, she layered broken pieces with frosting in a heavy blue sponge pottery bowl that was my grandma's.  Now, when I decorate cakes, the scraps and leftover frosting become crumble cake, full of surprises including extra filling, copious amounts of frosting, or unique blends of the various cake flavors I've made that day.

What baking blunders have actually turned out to be success stories for you?