Now we know why all the rum is gone…
Anyhow, TaMara is unavailable and asked if I’d fill in as the emergency backup food goddess. So I’ve gotten out the frilly apron, shined up the tiara, put on the oven mitts (which make it very hard to type), and we’re underway!
Yesterday I made a bananas foster bread pudding so I had just thing ready to go when called back to active duty.
Here’s a slice all set up for enjoyment served with salted caramel ice cream.
Ingredients
2 loaves of challah sliced regular
6 eggs
32 ounces of heavy whipping cream
1 cup of milk
2 cups of dark brown sugar
8 bananas
3 sticks of unsalted butter
Vanilla extract to taste
Rum to taste (or, if you prefer and don’t get hung up on tradition, bourbon) – the alcohol is optional if you want, prefer, and/or need to make a non-alcoholic version. I use a dark rum, but use whichever you prefer.
Directions: Bread Pudding
Let the challah sit a couple of days so it is just beginning to dry out and go stale. Then chop the challah into cubes and place in a very, very large mixing bowl. Combine the eggs, 1/2 the cream (16 ounces), the milk, 1/2 the sugar (1 cup), and vanilla extract to taste in a mixing bowl. Whisk until everything is combined into a custard. Pour the custard over the cubed challah and mix it around to make sure all the bread is soaking up the custard. Set aside.
Directions: Bananas Foster
Peel and slice the bananas. In a large saute pan melt the three sticks of butter. Add the sliced bananas and allow them to begin to naturally caramelize in the butter. Once this happens add vanilla extract to taste and the remaining brown sugar (1 cup). Cook everything down until everything is well combined and a caramel is beginning to form. If adding alcohol, add the rum (or bourbon) to taste and continue to cook until the alcohol cooks off. Add the remaining cream (16 ounces), combining everything well, and then allow to cook down without breaking the caramel for several minutes. So this has to be watched, you can’t just walk away while it simmers.
One note: in a traditional Bananas Foster, as far as I know, you do not add cream to the caramel/rum sauce. I do it here because I want a slightly richer mouthfeel as I add it as a second custard to the bread pudding mix.
Here’s the Bananas Foster simmering away:
Directions: Banana Foster Bread Pudding
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Take a 1/2 hotel pan or equivalent pyrex or aluminum foil pan and spray it with your preferred cooking spray or butter it to prevent sticking. Pour the bread pudding mix into the pan. Then pour the Bananas Foster over the bread pudding and mix to incorporate well. Cover the top of the baking pan with plastic wrap and then with aluminum foil. Don’t worry the plastic wrap won’t melt – it’s there to keep the bread pudding from drying out when baked.
Here’s what it looks like before it is wrapped and put in the oven:
Bake the bread pudding for an hour, then remove from the oven and cool. This is what it looks like after it has baked:
To Serve
The bread pudding can be served hot, warm, or cold. With ice cream, whipped cream, ice cream and whipped cream, or with more Bananas Foster spooned over the top. Or just plain.
As the base bread pudding recipe – the custard and bread mixture – is essentially a French toast/pan perdu, albeit diced up, a great way to serve it is to slice a couple of pieces and reheat them in a skillet in some melted butter as bread pudding French toast.
If you don’t like Bananas Foster, or bananas, or anyone named Foster (he knows what he did…), then you can skip that step completely. Or you can substitute a chocolate ganache for the bananas foster and make a chocolate swirl bread pudding. Or a caramel ganache. Or leave out the alcohol and substitute apples for the bananas and a make a caramel apple bread pudding. How you flavor the bread pudding is limited only by your imagination. And, perhaps, notions of decency and good taste…
And, obligatory:
Open thread!
Major Major Major Major
With countertops like that, see if I ever think you actually care about the poor again.
Manyakitty
Yum! Also, you look DARLING in that apron.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I broke into a rich person’s home, held the occupants at spatula point, and forced them to let me bake them dessert in their kitchen!//
Adam L Silverman
@Manyakitty: It does go great with my tshirt and gym shorts.
rikyrah
Looks delicious ?
mai naem mobile
Salted caramel ice cream just doesn’t sound good. Everytime I see it at the store I think of salty ice cream which doesn’t sound appetizing. Anyhoo. At least it’s Saturday so there won’t be any breaking news alerts from Dolt 45 or his minions.
Shana
Yum. Love Bread Pudding and Bananas Foster.
OT, just got back from seeing Dunkirk. Not usually an action movie or war movie fan, but man is it good. Although I read and liked “Blackout” and “All Clear” by Connie Willis, and recently read “A God in Ruins”. Both of which have Dunkirk and/or RAF flyers as major characters or plot points so that may have colored my opinion.
Sab
Why do I even take statins, with recipes like that floating around.
Barbara
@mai naem mobile: I have a recipe for burnt caramel ice cream and it is really good. As for bananas foster bread pudding — I think I stopped at three sticks of butter. Yowza!
debbie
I love bread pudding, but how do you cook like this in Florida in the summer?
Tip: You can cube challah when it’s fresh, spread on a baking sheet and bake at about 250 degrees until they dry out. They’ll be crisp like croutons and will hold their shape better in the pudding.
lollipopguild
You are multi-talented but some how I just cannot see you as a “Food Goddess”. A” Foreign Policy Goddess” yes!
WaterGirl
@Manyakitty: I thought that was Adam starring in the Captain Jack video. No?
Adam L Silverman
@mai naem mobile: I was going to do something about the violence in Israel, but it can wait till tomorrow.
Omnes Omnibus
Why is everyone looking at me? I swear it is brandy in this glass.
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: Nope. Don’t do the pirate thing. My aikido teaching partner, however, does pirate themed shows a a variety of festivals and fairs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: My parents’ kitchen has granite very much like that.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: We have air conditioning.
Waratah
Thank you Adam I just found out that my Paprika recipe works here. Copied your recipe perfectly, including the photo on the plate. Red Lobster use to have the bananas foster cheesecake that was just perfect but I guess I was the only one who liked it because they discontinued it.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: In all fairness, it’s a huge recipe. 2 loaves of bread and 4 cups od cream.
Yarrow
That looks delicious! I love bread pudding. The salted caramel ice cream sounds like a sugar bomb of the bananas foster bread pudding though. I think I might like plain vanilla. I’d love the ice cream on its own.
Adam L Silverman
@Waratah: Easy to make at home. Make Bananas Foster, I’d scale it down by 1/2 from the recipe above, and add 1/2 of that to a plain cheesecake batter. You can use the recipe I posted here last year. For serving you can spoon some of the remaining Bananas Foster over each slice.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: You serve dessert with the ice cream you have, not the ice cream you want…
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Me too, but the oven still heats up the kitchen!
Another Scott
@Barbara: The quart of heavy cream got my attention…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike J
@debbie:
Not just hold their shape better, actually absorb custard better.
Lyrebird
@debbie: The Floridians I have worked with don’t think the AC is working unless the room gets well below 70 degrees, so maybe by then you want to warm up by the stove? Similar when I was teaching in Texas, the classrooms were often more than 20 deg below the temperature outside.
Not sure what Foster did, but John Foster… ugh. I wanted them to rename that airport instead of National!
manyakitty
@Adam L Silverman: Frills make everything fancy.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I guess from my freezer it might be a lemon gelato or some Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chips cookie dough pint slices. Not sure those would work well enough to prevent a trip to the supermarket for vanilla…
manyakitty
@WaterGirl: OMG!!!! ??????
debbie
@Lyrebird:
I got my hair cut today. They like it cold there. When I left my glasses fogged up.
NotMax
Better you as substitute food goddess than, say, Kushner.
He’d have to amend the recipe 100 times.
Another Scott
@NotMax: Heheh. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Well played!
debbie
@Another Scott:
You can lighten it up by replacing half of the cream with regular milk.
WaterGirl
@manyakitty: It was a joke. :-)
debbie
@NotMax:
Or, like my grandmother used to do to my mother, leave out one ingredient.
Another Scott
@debbie: It’s not for me, though I’m sure it’s yummy. :-)
About the only dessert I make is Cowboy Cookies. Those are bad enough. (A pound of butter, sugar, brown sugar, etc., etc.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Lyrebird
@debbie:
Fogged-up laugh! 8-)
Got to visit a tropical city last year & had that happen every time we stepped off the light rail…
NotMax
Made some kickbutt challah in the super duper bread machine.
As an experiment, skipped the steps of taking out the dough, braiding and forming it, just let it do its thing as a regular loaf (did use the traditional egg wash). Worked like a charm and that will be my go to recipe when making bread to bring as a gift.
Finished timer just went off for a beer and cheese loaf am trying.
Barbara
Adam, do you mean unsalted butter?
scav
@NotMax: Beer and Cheese loaf? Report back if any good. My latest is an overnight beer artisan loaf (one of the dutch oven ones). I’m currently working through a series of experiments with different flours, but am thinking of a cheesey plusn?? loaf next — inspired mightily by some black pepper and parmesan biscotti I just had.
NotMax
@scav
Have a no fail recipe for a no-rise beer and cheese bread I bake in the regular oven. This one that just took out of the machine uses yeast in addition to the beer so curious about the results. Certainly passes the aroma test with flying colors.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: Yes, sorry. I’ll make a quick edit.
scav
@NotMax: My current beer one uses yeast along with a little vinegar and is one of the no-kneads. It’s a good one, or at least one I’m very much liking, so good luck with your latest!
scav
Here as it’s all the Internet. Current no knead bread recipe
workworkwork
I made a no-sugar-added version of baked beans in the slow cooker. Tasty and didn’t spike my blood glucose!
(Substituted Splenda for the honey and molasses.)
Also did honey garlic chicken in the slow cooker, substituting for the honey. Went really well with the beans!
On the advice of a nutritionist, we got a Vitamix last week (reconditioned, on sale).
Any tips or ‘gotchas’, that sort of thing?
NotMax
@scav
As we’re sharing…
3 cups all-purpose flour
1½ tbl sugar
1 tbl baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbl honey
1 bottle (12 ounces) beer
4 tbl (half stick) butter, melted
1 cup shredded cheese of choice (or more if you want )
Optional: Some herbs of choice (basil, rosemary, oregano, etc.)
Preheat the oven to 350. Grease loaf pan.
Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir the beer and honey and cheese together and microwave for maybe 30 – 45 seconds to meld flavors a bit. Pour that mixture into the dry ingredients until just mixed.
Pour half the melted butter into the loaf pan. Then pour the batter into the pan, tap the pan lightly on countertop to release any trapped air and spread remaining butter on top of the batter.
Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until top is golden brown and a toothpick or knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
scav
@NotMax: Thanks! I’ve not tried any one like that yet so that’ll be fun.
NotMax
@scav
Works just as well without the cheese, too.
Miss Bianca
Oh, yum! I love bread pudding, and making it with challah sounds positively decadent! To say nothing of salted caramel ice cream on top of bananas Foster’ed, be still my heart!