Michael and I are quite bad at eating up bread. Personally once it gets a bit stale I don't like it anymore. I love FRESH bread. So we often end up with the end of a loaf sitting waiting for someone to eat it. I sometimes make breadcrumbs or bread and butter pudding but once we've have b&b pudding once we seem reluctant to have it again the next night. So... what to do?
Well I have a husband who is fairly well guaranteed to eat anything chocolatey and I know bread pudding (rather than bread and butter pudding) keeps well but have never made it. Is there such as thing as chocolate bread pudding? Well despite a few recipes claiming to be just that they seem to be b&b pudding with rich cream and chocolate (whereas I was hoping to use milk and cocoa!)
In the end I found a Cranks recipe for bread pudding and adapted it as follows:
8oz (225g) Stale bread hacked into small pieces
1/2 pint (284ml) plus an extra 4tbsp (60ml) milk
3/4 cup of cocoa
1/4 cup boiling water
5oz (125g) Dried fruit - whatever you like but adding something like apricots to the usual raisins is cool
2oz (50g) grated butter
4oz (100g) Brown sugar
1 heaped tbsp (20ml) mixed spice
1 egg
nutmeg to grate
Put the cocoa in a small bowl (or large mug!!) and add the boiling water, stirring to a smooth paste. When it is smooth, gradually add in the 1/2 pint (284ml) milk.
Put the broken bread in a large bowl and add the chocolate milk mixture. Stir thoroughly. Leave to soak for 30mins at least, and give it the occasional stir. The longer you leave this the better really!
Put the oven on at Gas Mark 4 (180C/350F)
Add the fruit, grated butter, spice and sugar to the large bowl. In a small bowl (the same one again if you like!) whisk the egg with the 4tbsp (60ml) milk. Add this to the laqrge bowl and mix.
Press it all into a shallow oven proof dish (we use one of those funky teflon flexible ones so no need for lining paper) Put this in the oven for 45 mins until set. Then remove from the oven, slice and have at least one piece for yourself then put the rest on a plate or in a tin to eat later!!
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, October 19, 2008
autumn comes autumn leaves
It was really wonderful to have some time out this weekend after some fairly heavy weeks of work in hours and emotional engagement. Love my job as I do, I knew I was turning into a zombie towards the end of last week and that's never good for continuing to love my job!
So on Friday I took the well earned TOIL and began the chill down with a tidy of the house and some creative catering (Pork with gorgonzola sauce and stuffed mushrooms accompanied by a green bean and red onion salad with balsamic dressing).
Saturday we walked the dog and kicked up some autumn leaves (I even carried some home with me which is a perfectly normal thing to do - even if people do give you funny looks!) and then I went mad with some paint (some of it getting on the dog!!) and did a few pieces.
I also made Nigel Slater's chocolate cake (yumskies! Even better for being able to offer some to the curate this afternoon :oD ) and a batch of mincemeat. My best beloved and I had a great half hour contemplating what alcohol should go in the mincemeat from our eclectic store and have opted for a cointreau/pimms/cranberry gin combo - we wait and see how it turns out!
I'm most pleased with this picture here which is a kind of reworking of an earlier painting I did for my mate Matt (though he's not blogged in an ETERNITY!).
Funny thing about creativity. I find it quite difficult to recreate something that's like this. If it's a very figurative work I find it a lot easier but something really free like this, well it's just not right to try and recreate it. Recreating it makes it not what it was which was a free piece.
I find youthwork and church has the same feel sometimes. Often the things that work the best are those which didn't come about through a careful plan but have come together in a marvellous serendipitous working of the Holy Spirit bringing together some unique groups of people. You can't repeat that model elsewhere because it didn't start as a model, rather it grew and evolved.
In the end I abandoned my attempt to recreate the original painting and have ultimately ended up with something I think I actually prefer to the original (gorgeous and green though it was!)
So on Friday I took the well earned TOIL and began the chill down with a tidy of the house and some creative catering (Pork with gorgonzola sauce and stuffed mushrooms accompanied by a green bean and red onion salad with balsamic dressing).
Saturday we walked the dog and kicked up some autumn leaves (I even carried some home with me which is a perfectly normal thing to do - even if people do give you funny looks!) and then I went mad with some paint (some of it getting on the dog!!) and did a few pieces.
I also made Nigel Slater's chocolate cake (yumskies! Even better for being able to offer some to the curate this afternoon :oD ) and a batch of mincemeat. My best beloved and I had a great half hour contemplating what alcohol should go in the mincemeat from our eclectic store and have opted for a cointreau/pimms/cranberry gin combo - we wait and see how it turns out!
I'm most pleased with this picture here which is a kind of reworking of an earlier painting I did for my mate Matt (though he's not blogged in an ETERNITY!).
Funny thing about creativity. I find it quite difficult to recreate something that's like this. If it's a very figurative work I find it a lot easier but something really free like this, well it's just not right to try and recreate it. Recreating it makes it not what it was which was a free piece.
I find youthwork and church has the same feel sometimes. Often the things that work the best are those which didn't come about through a careful plan but have come together in a marvellous serendipitous working of the Holy Spirit bringing together some unique groups of people. You can't repeat that model elsewhere because it didn't start as a model, rather it grew and evolved.
In the end I abandoned my attempt to recreate the original painting and have ultimately ended up with something I think I actually prefer to the original (gorgeous and green though it was!)
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Recipe 2 - Chocolate Puddle Pudding
This was a rather popular conclusion to the week away with the young people. Be warned it can be kinda rich!! It works well with a little bit of vanilla icecream.
This pudding is rather clever as it knows which bits to put in the sauce at the bottom and which bits to keep as cake.
(for 6 people)
Preheat the oven to 180c or Gas mark 4
In a mixing bowl mix together 5oz self raising flour, 2 tablespoons of cocoa (or you can do 4oz flour and an extra 1oz cocoa!) 7oz caster sugar, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of vanilla essence, 1 oz melted butter and 5 fluid oz milk (preferably full fat or semi skimmed).
Spoon this mixture into an oven proof dish.
In another bowl, mix together 5oz brown sugar and 4tablespoons of cocoa. (Alternatively you can use a very good drinking chocolate which has a similar cocoa content!). Sprinkle this evenly over the top of the cake mixture in the dish.
You can leave it at this stage for a while.
When you are ready to cook it, pour three quarters of a pint of hot (not boiling) water over the dish and put it straight int he oven for fifty minutes. DO NOT PEEK!
The finished pudding will look like a chocolate cake semi floating in a chocolate puddle.
You can eat it hot or cold... if it lasts that long!
This pudding is rather clever as it knows which bits to put in the sauce at the bottom and which bits to keep as cake.
(for 6 people)
Preheat the oven to 180c or Gas mark 4
In a mixing bowl mix together 5oz self raising flour, 2 tablespoons of cocoa (or you can do 4oz flour and an extra 1oz cocoa!) 7oz caster sugar, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of vanilla essence, 1 oz melted butter and 5 fluid oz milk (preferably full fat or semi skimmed).
Spoon this mixture into an oven proof dish.
In another bowl, mix together 5oz brown sugar and 4tablespoons of cocoa. (Alternatively you can use a very good drinking chocolate which has a similar cocoa content!). Sprinkle this evenly over the top of the cake mixture in the dish.
You can leave it at this stage for a while.
When you are ready to cook it, pour three quarters of a pint of hot (not boiling) water over the dish and put it straight int he oven for fifty minutes. DO NOT PEEK!
The finished pudding will look like a chocolate cake semi floating in a chocolate puddle.
You can eat it hot or cold... if it lasts that long!
Recipe 1 - TIFFIN
TIFFIN
In a saucepan melt 250g/8oz butter and 4tbsps of golden syrup (or brown sugar/honey if you don't have syrup!). When it's melted take the pan off the heat and break up 400g/14oz dark chocolate into the saucepan. Stir it all up.
Then crush up 450g/160z digestives (this usually works out as just less than one of those big packets so you can eat the few left over!!) and add them to the chocolate mix.
Then add 200g/7-8 oz of a mixture of the following:
nuts, raisins, glace cherries, dried mango, dried cranberries, coconut, dried apricots, dried apple, dried pineapple, glace ginger, mini marshmallows etc. Experiment with different mixes.
Smush that all into a silicone baking tray (or a greased normal baking tray if you don't have one of those)
Gently melt another 400g chocolate in the pan and pour this on top of the mixture. Smooth it out. You can even put little marbling effects in with white chocolate if you're keen).
Put in the fridge until it all sets. When it's hard, take it out of the fridge fro twenty mintues then slice into pieces. You can put these in a tin and store in the fridge for as long as you can hide it from yourself!
In a saucepan melt 250g/8oz butter and 4tbsps of golden syrup (or brown sugar/honey if you don't have syrup!). When it's melted take the pan off the heat and break up 400g/14oz dark chocolate into the saucepan. Stir it all up.
Then crush up 450g/160z digestives (this usually works out as just less than one of those big packets so you can eat the few left over!!) and add them to the chocolate mix.
Then add 200g/7-8 oz of a mixture of the following:
nuts, raisins, glace cherries, dried mango, dried cranberries, coconut, dried apricots, dried apple, dried pineapple, glace ginger, mini marshmallows etc. Experiment with different mixes.
Smush that all into a silicone baking tray (or a greased normal baking tray if you don't have one of those)
Gently melt another 400g chocolate in the pan and pour this on top of the mixture. Smooth it out. You can even put little marbling effects in with white chocolate if you're keen).
Put in the fridge until it all sets. When it's hard, take it out of the fridge fro twenty mintues then slice into pieces. You can put these in a tin and store in the fridge for as long as you can hide it from yourself!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)