Bread Pudding, the way it's Meant to Be

When I was a little girl, my mother's Parsee friends used to make me bread pudding. Their recipe was simple and the end result, delicious.

Back then, white bread wasn't evil, eggs weren't akin cigarettes (bs, imo), sugar was sweet and people would eat, all of the above, albeit in moderation.

I must admit I tried, many a time to make recipes healthier. Swapping butter for yogurt, applesauce, good will, and so forth... and I've actually succeeded many times. So I do have a perfectly nice recipe for bread pudding which uses whole grain bread and natural sweeteners, but you know what, it just doesn't satisfy.

Truth be told, I love white bread. I love eggs. I love sugar. In moderation, I believe they can do no harm. Besides, our diet is otherwise rich in whole grains, vegetables, and legumes for me to not feel guilty about this indulgence.
Most importantly though, this bread pudding, like other favourites from my childhood, shall not be messed with.

You will need:
Sliced white bread (or Indian Pav Bread) sliced into small pieces - 5 cups  
Large Eggs - 6
Milk (whole or 2%) - 2 cups
Condensed milk - 1 can (14 oz, or approx 400ml)
Sultanas/ Golden Raisins - 1/2 cup
Vanilla extract - 2 teaspoons
Green Cardamom, shelled and powdered - 6 pods
Nutmeg, freshly grated - a pinch

Just be sure to:
1. Use unsweetened white bread like the kind they use to make sandwiches. Do not use sweet bread, this recipe is sweet enough as it is.
2. If you aren't familiar with or fond of the flavor cardamom imparts, then I would strongly suggest using fewer pods. As for me, I grew up in a house that on Thursdays and weekends was a cardamom scented haven, so I love the stuff.
3. You have to grate the nutmeg fresh. Pre-powdered nutmeg is just wrong. Just as wrong as pre-powdered cardamom.

A Note on the Sweetness:
This dessert is sweet. Quelle surprise!!
Well, what I mean is, if you've tried other recipes on this blog you will have realized that they are sweet enough to be called sweet, but not cloying sweet. Not sickeningly sweet. Not Italian sweet.
It is sweet though, so if you hold me in high regard and cherish me for my ability to make desserts sweet, but not too sweet, be warned that this is one of the sweeter ones. It's delicious though, so I would urge you not to make any subtractions or worse, substitutions.

If you absolutely, have to tone down the sweetness because a Tufted Capuchun is holding your favorite sweater hostage or something like that, you can do one of the following:
1. Use 1/4 cup of sultanas or (I can't believe I'm saying this) leave them out altogether.  This is what I would consider a great tragedy, but you must do what you must do for your favorite sweater.
2.  Use half a can of condensed milk and replace it with plain milk.


The How:
Begin by boiling the milk and condensed milk in a sauce pan. I usually bring this to a boil and then let it cool, but you can get by with just bring it to a point where the two are well combined and steaming. Let it sit around till it is barely warm to touch.

Grease your baking dish. Slice the bread. Toss together with sultanas and add them to the baking dish. Cover the lot with some aluminum foil (you will need this while baking and also to keep the bread from drying out in the interim).

Get your blender and add the six eggs, vanilla essence, shelled and powdered cardamom, and grate nutmeg right into the jar. Blend till well combined.

Add as much of the cooled milk as the blender jar permits. Most blender jars don't have the capacity for all the milk + eggs, so be sure to add the blended mix back into the rest of the milk and give it all a good stir.

Pour the milk/egg mixture over the bread and let it sit for about half an hour.



Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Set a pan (larger than your baking dish) in the oven, place the pudding dish in it and add water to the pan.
Cook for 50 minutes.


Remove the aluminum foil and cook for an additional 30 minutes. Oven temperatures vary, so it might take 10 minutes more or less.
Look for a firm pudding that doesn't jiggle on the pan being shaken slightly. Be careful not to spill any of the hot water on yourself.

By the way, if any of you did find your way to that article in Time, chances are what caused those people to contract heart disease might be that sliver of bacon coupled alongside them harmless, healthy, balls of sunshine.

Chèvre-Honey-Walnut Sandwiches

This is a recipe in which I take great pride. I didn't read about it, I didn't see it be done, I just came up with it. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been done... it probably has. Like most other things I believe I created only to be told by some insufferable know-it-all that it has been done before.
Nevertheless, whether it was I or anybody else who made them, these sandwiches are delicious. 

Ingredients to make six half sandwiches:

Cinnamon Raisin Bread, sliced (toasted, if you prefer) - 6 slices
(If you don't have Cinnamon Raisin, any other bread will do. Just not sourdough!)
Goat Cheese, crumbled - 3 tablespoons or soft goat cheese - 1/4 cup
Honey - 2 tablespoons
Walnuts, chopped, 2 tablespoons.

Making the spread: Mix the goat cheese, honey, and walnuts together in a small bowl. The honey will hold the nuts and cheese together. It also does a fantastic job of complementing the saltiness of Goat cheese with its deep sweetness. Do not use goat cheese packed in brine for this recipe.
The walnuts add a new texture and flavor dimension to the spread.

Spread this between slices of Cinnamon Raisin Bread and cut diagonally.
If you used soft goat cheese, you could even cut it in strips.

Goes very very well with black coffee or tea.

Rue Rebecca and Cheddar Rolls

Rebecca is part of maintainence staff in our apartment building (well, at least she is for one more day).
More importantly, Rebecca is a wonderful woman.

In a world of increasingly distant and distracted "hellos" and "good mornings", Rebecca was the one person in my life who said it like she meant it. She looks you straight in the eye, and smiles, and says - "Good morning, how are you?" rolling her R's as she does it.

On mornings when I look particularly disheveled as I trudge down to the lobby to bring up the Times, Rebecca asks, "Whats wrong? Are you okay?" I mumble ... "tired" ... "was writing"..."too cold"... "drank too much coffee yesterday, couldn't sleep"... And yet, strangely enough whatever the cause for my exhaustion, once I had told her I felt better. The fact that she cared enough to asked me, made it all better.

For a year now, Rebecca has meant so much to me, and yet my interaction with her was always limited to warm smiles and three word sentences. That is until last week, when I saw someone else where Rebecca ought to be.
I panicked. "Where is Rebecca?" I asked our door staff. "Rebecca is leaving us. This is G.., she is replacing her."

My heart sank, "Oh."
"Well, is she still here? When is her last day?" I asked.

"Next Wednesday, I think"

To cut a long story short, in the interest of getting to the parts that matter, I found Rebecca and asked her home for a cup of coffee before she left.

Anticipating her visit today, I spent yesterday mulling over recipes to find the perfect cake to bake her. Yet, this morning, although I looked forward to her visit... I couldn't bring myself to bake a cake. It felt too sad for cake.
So when she did get here, all I could offer her was almonds, amaretto cookies, and cream crackers. I did however open up a treasured tin of coffee from Cafe Du Monde. This seemed as good an occasion as any.

And for the first time in a year of knowing her, we talked; and with ease, like we have had a hundred conversations before. We talked about our lives, families, and plans for the future.

Simba took a particular liking to her, and attempted climbing on her shoulders to catch a quick nap.  She told me the most wonderful story about her mother's cat Minino, who has found personal body guards in her mothers dogs! The two dogs apparently adore the little kitty to bits. So much, that they don't allow anyone to pet the cat. They bark and pounce if you so much as advance towards their precious keep.

You can't help but love her stories and especially for the way she tells them. The affection and pain evident in her eyes as she recounts the experiences of her life.

Gosh... I'll miss her so much, and its some respite that I did manage to tell her all that - about how much her smile and greetings meant to me, how much I would miss her, how delighted I was that she now had new opportunities to explore new things.

And happy as I am that she's moving on to what I pray will be nicer places and more fulfilling labors, I cannot help but rue the resignation of Rebecca.

After she left, I sat for a minutes and looked at our empty coffee cups. In a way I do understand that her leaving is what made it possible for me to get to know her. Else, we would have lived our lives, feeling our quiet affection towards each other, but never saying more than hello, and asking each other (albeit with genuine concern) "How are you?"

Later, I felt this unexplainable desire to knead something... so I baked these cheddar rolls. Some sort of self-soothing mechanism for me apparently.

Cheddar Rolls: Makes 8

(This recipe has been adapted from here)

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Instant yeast - 2 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 2 tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Butter (melted) - 2 tbsp
Cheddar cheese(shredded) - 1/2 cup 
Water (warm) - 1 cup

What to do with it: 
1. Combine the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar in a bowl and mix with your hands. 
2. Add cheese and mix again. 
3. Add water and butter and knead till the dough comes together. 
4. Turn the dough onto a cold surface (like a marble slab or the kitchen counter) and knead with your hands for about 5 minutes. 
5. Divide them into eight rolls and set them aside to rise. This might take up to one hour.
6. Bake in an over preheated to 375 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes.