Rummy chocolate banana bread pudding

Hi, my name is Sarah.  I'm a Sugar Lovin pastry chef and I dislike bread pudding.  Here's my story.

Until last week, I'd never made bread pudding.  The concept of it sounds a little odd to me.  Bread, soaked in a sugary milk mixture and then baked?  Just weird. I'd had bread pudding-style French toast, but that was...different, in the fact that it was a savory meal, not a sweet treat.

In any case, I decided I'd try it.  I was in desperate need a of a good party dessert and I didn't have a lot of time to make something.  Why I landed on bread pudding, I'll never know.  Maybe I was inspired by an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay on bread pudding, or maybe it's been the litany of bread pudding recipes I'd seen lately.  Either way, I was one loaf of crusty Italian bread and half-and-half away from having this recipe all but finished. 


A few things you should know about bread pudding:
1.  It's a very old dessert. 
2.  It can be made quickly or slowly, depending on what you need
3.  It's just as good cold as it is hot
4.  The flavor combinations are endless
5.  There is no "right" kind of bread, however their are breads that really don't work well

Bread pudding is actually a very, very old sweet treat that evolved from people needing to find a use for their stale bread. Ancient Romans, Egyptians, and Indians all refer to a dish that was, in essence, a bread pudding.  A traditional bread pudding today begins with stale bread soaked in an egg custard which is then baked with whatever flavors and fixins you'd like.  The bread pudding of ancient Roman times was not soaked with custard, as custard was not invented until the Middle Ages, but it held the same basic theory- milk, stale bread, fat, and a sweetener of some kind.  It's remained popular throughout the ages and is often thought of as comfort food.  For more on the history of bread pudding, check out this article from ehow.com. 

Bread pudding can be made in just an hour or it could take an overnight soak and a water bath to bake.  It depends on what you need to do.  For an incredibly traditional way to make bread pudding, check out this recipe from Paula Deen.   You could even go so far as to soak the bread cubes overnight.  This particular recipe includes baking the bread pudding in a bain marie, or water bath.  Water baths are a very gentle way to cook something, allowing the entire dish to cook very evenly.  However, with other recipes, you might only have to soak the bread cubes for 10 minutes and bake it, sans the bain marie.

Also, bread pudding tastes really good cold; especially with a cup of coffee in the morning.  I personally think it tastes better hot, but that's just me. 

Bread pudding is likely not going to get "old" either, as long as you keep switching up your flavor combinations.  Try coconut cream from Paula Deen; traditional apples, cinnamon and raisin made with a brioche bread; chocolate and coffee with stale pain de mie; pear and walnut with cinnamon swirl bread; you get the idea.  

Finally some people swear that only certain breads make a good bread pudding.  They'll claim it's brioche or bust.  French loaf or it's gross.  Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada.  Any fresh bread that's gone stale will do.   An oxymoron, I know, but let me elaborate. 

You don't want to use Wonder bread or high preservative sandwich bread.  This bread is less likely to go stale quickly, for one, and for two, it's so thin it wouldn't hold up to the custard soak.  Any fresh, bakery bread, i.e. the stuff you find in the bakery section of your grocery store or a loaf you would actually buy at a bread bakery will work just fine.  This bread is often free of artificial preservatives and will only need a day of sitting out to go stale.   I experimented with the types of bread I used mainly for flavor reasons, but they all worked fine in the recipes. 

So now, on to the main event, my rummy chocolate banana bread pudding.  It's easy, it's quick and it's super delicious. 

Ingredients:
15 cups Bread cubes (I used an Italian loaf for this recipe)
20 oz Mini chocolate chips, divided
3 3/4 cups Half-and-half
1/4 cup Good rum
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Brown sugar
1 Tbsp Vanilla
6 Large eggs

3 VERY ripe bananas
2/3 cup Heavy cream

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  In a 9x13 baking dish combine bread cubes and 10 oz of chocolate chips.  Spread evenly to the edges. 
2. In a large saucepan over medium high heat, bring half and half and rum to a boil.  Meanwhile, combine sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, eggs and peeled bananas in large bowl.  Whisk to combine, mashing the bananas as necessary.  SLOWLY, pour the hot half-and-half mixture into the egg mixtures, whisking constantly to ensure the eggs don't curdle. 
3.  Pour this liquid custard over the bread cubes and chocolate chips.  Cover with aluminum foil and set in refrigerator to soak for 20 minutes.
4.  Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Meanwhile, set remaining 10 oz of chocolate in stainless steel bowl.  Bring heavy cream to soft boil and pour over chocolate.  Whisk until smooth. 
5.  Allow bread pudding to cool and serve still warm with chocolate sauce.

That's my journey of bread pudding.  Did I mention I'm a total convert now?

Death by Sugar Lovin pie

It's probably never a good idea to try and put two sweet things together that you've never made before.  But I really, really thought that these might taste good, which they did, they just happened to send the eater into a sugar lovin high. To give you a description of the Death by Sugar Lovin pie:  it began with an oat cookie crust that was lined with chocolate ganache, filled with a no bake cheesecake and topped with peanut brittle.

I know.  My teeth hurt just thinking about all that sugar in one place.  It was highly decadent and it was an experiment that was successful the fact that it taught me a few things and it gave me a couple of new techniques to share.

We'll start with the oat cookie crust:


In Bon Appetit's September Restaurant issue, they revealed the recipes of Christina Tosi, the pastry chef at Momofuku Milk Bar and the Momofuku restaurant empire (for more on the Momofuku family of restaurants, visit www.momofuku.com or read Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw).  Tosi is known for being incredibly inventive and her desserts are known for being very addictive.   What caught my eye in all of her desserts was the recipe for Crack Pie.  You can find the whole recipe here, but today, I am focusing on the crust.


The oat cookie crust is very unique to me.  While it resembles a graham crust or any crushed cookie crust, what's unique about this crust is that rather than starting with already crushed cookies, or buying a package or oreos, you make an oatmeal cookie bar, crumble it and create the crust completely from scratch.  The oat cookie crust technique inspired me to start thinking about other types of cookie crusts you could make from scratch and the number of delicious fillings you could pair with them to make a truly unique pie.  See your basic recipe here and get ideas on how to make it your own.

But for my first try, I followed Tosi's recipe.  The oat cookie crust came out perfectly.  The only thing I did differently was blind bake the crust without the filling for 17-18 minutes after pressing into the pie pan because I wanted to fill the crust with a cheesecake and ganache filling that couldn't be baked.  


Now for thoughts on a cheesecake & ganache filling.  Some key items to remember.


1.  You won't need as much ganache as you think.
2.  You won't need as much cheesecake filling as you think.
3.  When in doubt, let it chill longer.


Ganache is a very basic pastry item that everyone can make.  You just need chocolate and heavy cream.  See the recipe here.  The beautiful thing about ganache is that you can adjust your ratio of cream to chocolate to create a thicker or thinner ganache.  The consistency you are looking for here is equal parts cream to chocolate for a thin glaze effect.

This particular cheesecake filling was a no-bake filling, which means there aren't any eggs.  The bonus is that it comes together quickly.  The downside is that it never reaches a true cheesecake density.  It depends what you like in your cheesecake.  I decided to go a slightly tangy and sweet route.  My filling recipe can be found here, but for quick reference it had cream cheese, greek yogurt, goat cheese, honey, sugar and a touch of heavy cream.

And finally, the topper- peanut brittle.

I had never made candy or brittle before this little experiment.  A few things I learned:

1.  When in doubt, opt for a bigger pan.
2.  Understand that you need to spend the whole time at the stove with the peanut brittle mixture.  
3.  Corn syrup is kind of flavorless.


My peanut brittle ended up being very thick.  It still tastes good, but for brittle of any kind, thinness is key for breaking it up and eating it.  When it's too thick, it doesn't break well and it gets stuck in your teeth, giving you the flavor of peanut brittle constantly.   

I thought since my candy thermometer was going to gauge the temperature for me, I could watch TV and check on it every once in a while.  Nope, nope, and nope.  Peanut brittle needs to be stirred, and often.  In addition, you have to watch the pan to make sure the brittle mixture doesn't overflow while boiling.


Also, corn syrup has absolutely no depth of flavor.  So the original recipe I made tastes like peanut brittle, but in the future, I'll be making it this way, courtesy of Sir Emeril, minus the chili powder.


So when you assemble this Death by Sugar Lovin pie, it goes:


Crust
Ganache
Cheesecake filling
Broken peanut brittle pieces

Then it has to chill overnight.  It does taste really good.  It's just so decadent that you need to take a very small slice.  Or, do this....try making all of these fun pastry items, just not in the same dessert!

Basic chocolate ganache recipe and methods

Chocolate ganache, depending on the consistency, can be used as a cake filler, a cake glaze, chocolate syrup to drizzle and more.  Here's your basic recipe, which can be used to glaze a cake or drizzle syrup across a yummy dessert.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup Heavy Cream
10 oz Chopped chocolate (any kind will do...though chocolate baking discs are my favorite)

Methods:

There are many ways to make chocolate ganache.  Some swear that you can place both items in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring it until it's smooth.

I personally prefer one of the two following methods.  I choose the way I do it based on the time in which I need the ganache to be finished.

Quick Ganache:
1. Place chocolate in stainless steel bowl, set aside.  Heat cream in small saucepan over high heat until it just boils. 
2.  Pour hot cream over chocolate, stirring until smooth.

Slow Ganache:
1.  Place chocolate and cream in large stainless steel bowl.  Set bowl over pot of simmering water and allow to heat slowly, stirring occasionally until smooth.

Either way, when you are done, your ganache should look like this:

Notice the ribbon-like stream of chocolate- that's what you're aiming for.

A few nifty tidbits on chocolate ganache: 

1.  By adjusting the ratio or chocolate to cream, you can create a thinner or thicker ganache.  More chocolate than cream will give you a thicker ganache that could be used to fill a cake.  More cream then chocolate gives you a thinner glaze.

2.  Chocolate ganache can be reused.  If you have leftover ganache, transfer it to a stainless steel bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator.   To bring it back, place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and stir.