Even now in heaven there were angels carrying savage weapons

[sovay]

Tonight's recipe sponsored by frustration, depression, and ready access to a lot of carbohydrates. It turned out pretty well.

Everything About Today Was Awful So I Baked a Bread Pudding in My Toaster Oven Bread Pudding

Preparation:

Stare miserably at the 95% remaining of the loaf of Hi-Rise Bread Company's Boston brown bread with blueberries you bought so trustingly on Friday, not realizing that any foodstuffs of a density greater than pasta were about to become your natural enemy. Wonder about soaking it in soup. Determine bread pudding is a much better idea for something that tastes that strongly of molasses and blueberries.

Accidentally confirm via conversation with phi on Saturday night that baking in a toaster oven is totally a thing.

Read at least a dozen recipes for bread pudding on the internet before deciding the only complicated part is the custard. Have small breakdown on realization that measuring cups and spoons either never moved from old apartment or are still packed up in some counterintuitive box. Determine to go ahead anyway and handle everything with sole discernible measuring cup (liquid) and ordinary spoons. Synthesize recipe and appropriate amount of custard based on quantities of bread available and other ingredients in the house. Make sure to eat dinner first.

Thickly butter a 9-by-9 glass baking dish. Preheat the toaster oven to 350°F, although admittedly this takes five minutes.

(For those not suffering the ravages of orthodonture, steps 1–3 may be omitted.)

Pudding:

5 cups Boston brown bread, chopped into more or less 1-inch cubes
2 cups cream
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
dash of salt

Cube the bread and fill the baking dish with it. Fortunately, the entire 95% loaf just fits.

Whisk together all remaining ingredients in a large bowl, or a 7-cup round Pyrex storage dish if that's what's handy. If the butter comes out of the refrigerator, melt it in the microwave, but allow it to cool before adding to the eggs and milk. Vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg are all to taste; amounts here vary from estimate to suggestion. Pour proto-custard over bread in baking dish, pressing and stirring slightly to ensure that all bread is covered. Let sit for at least 45 minutes, periodically turning, in order to allow bread to soak up liquid thoroughly. By the end of this process, bread should be squishy and mostly submerged.

Baking:

In a toaster oven at 350°F, 50 minutes seems to do it. I had expected less—all the recipes I'd consulted were dealing with larger volumes of bread pudding than I'd put up—but it's possible an actual oven would be more efficient. I started with 25 minutes, rotated the dish and then advanced by 10- and 5-minute intervals. The custard should puff out slightly and set, which can be checked by prying up one of the top pieces of bread to examine the solidity underneath. The sides of the dish may bubble ferociously. It isn't possible with brown bread to test for doneness by color, but so long as it neither brittles nor burns and the custard doesn't darken too much (flan-colored is fine, caramel-colored is overdoing it), you haven't overcooked it. When custard is done and bread is not ashes, remove from toaster oven and place on the folded dishcloth that stands in for a trivet in this house, since the pudding at this stage is punitively hot. When it has cooled the minimum necessary to avoid scalding, scoop into bowls. Put away ice cream that was previously removed from freezer on the immediate understanding that this custard is Dickensianly rich and adding further milkfat would be overkill, not to mention hazardous. The bread is soft and cream-curded, the blueberries have plumped up and partly dissolved. It all tastes very dark brown and not too heavily spiced. If other people in your household can consume this substance and you don't at least offer them some, you are probably being a terrible person. Wrap up substantial leftovers for later.

Put your braces back in and feel vindictively accomplished about the whole thing.

Comments

[phi]

Stare miserably at the 95% remaining of the loaf of Hi-Rise Bread Company's Boston brown bread with blueberries you bought so trustingly on Friday, not realizing that any foodstuffs of a density greater than pasta were about to become your natural enemy.

*hugs* if they are useful and you want them.

I'm glad the toaster oven baking worked out for you, at least.

[kate_nepveu]

Vindictive accomplishment is still accomplishment. Well done.

[genarti]

I always forget how much I love bread pudding, and then I see recipes and am reminded. I should give this a go.

Three cheers for vindictive culinary accomplishment!

[irisbleufic.livejournal.com]

Mmm, bread pudding. That actually sounds amazing.

(I come offering more new N/H fic, too, in hopes it may help you feel better.)

[gwynnega]

That sounds delicious. I love bread pudding.

[spatch]

THAT BROWN BREAD DID NOT GIVE UP ITS AMUSING CAN-LIKE SHAPE IN VAIN.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Wow! My big culinary achievement tonight was baking chicken breasts done in a weird sort of spice rub I made up at the last minute. This is some serious chemistry.;)

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Congratulations to you on both making and eating such a tasty treat!

Your lack of measuring utensils reminds me of a recipe I hope to try one of these days, Ten Cup Ranger Cookies (http://lotrscrapbook.bookloaf.net/other/recipes.html#32). The theory is that Rangers only carry one cup, so it's all "one cup of this and one cup of that...and an egg".

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I adore bread pudding. Note: savory bread puddings are also totally a thing.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

Stare miserably at the..

I think thats the way a lot of things start... grin.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

It seems to have been that sort of day. I wound up with potatoes au gratin, myself, because we were out of eggs and had cream and I Did Not Want To Shop.

My prejudices against fifties-style food notwithstanding, potatoes au gratin turns out to be perfectly cromulent food. Though I will never like working with potatoes, because you do a lot of work and then you only have peeled potatoes, and then you do a great deal more work and you only have thinly sliced potatoes, and then they need to cook for like an hour. Oh, well, there are leftovers.

Your bread pudding sounds as though it would solve the problem I usually have with Boston Brown Bread, which is that it is too dry.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

I'd eat the hell out of that. Stay accomplished.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I read several screens into this post thinking that you were going to cook it in a pop-up toaster, and that it didn't work.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I am sorry that everything about yesterday was awful.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry there was so much awful in the day, but I'm glad that you were able to bake such a lovely bread pudding in despite. Hurrah for improvisation and successful use of a toaster oven!

I made bread pudding a fortnight back, because we had half a bag of dried cubed bread left over from stuffing a duck at Christmas and it needed something done with it. It ended up soaking for a day before being baked, and I probably should have made more custard since the bread was drier than the merely day-old bread the recipe called for, but it worked. Then again, whiskey sauce covereth a multitude of sins.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

feel vindictively accomplished

smiling, because, in fact, that's a feeling I've actually had, and consequently recognize. This recipe sounds awesome--but I must commit apricot cake first.