Kitchen Experiments : Bread Pudding

This should go down as one of the world's quickest dessert recipes. Not to mention hassle free (in terms of ingredients) and easy (in terms of the process) too! Its a rare recipe which fits all 3 criteria AND is something presentable to guests as something that looks like a lot of time and effort have gone into it. :P

The recipe is generic and can be found online - be sure to follow the Bread Pudding recipe and not the Bread and Butter Pudding recipe (which is slightly more complex).
You basically soak pieces of (preferably day-old) bread in hot milk. While they soak up the milk and go all gooey, blitz together egg(s), sugar and a flavouring of your choice (I used grated nutmeg but you can use vanilla/chocolate/kevda jal /cinnamon/ what have you) in the blender. Add the soaked bread pieces, and blitz further till you get a thick smooth puree.

Mix in (by hand) roughly chopped nuts (also raisins if you prefer), pour into a greased pan/tin and either bake it for 15-20 minutes or cook it in a pressure cooker (one whistle at full pressure, then 15 minutes on low flame) till done. If using the cooker, ensure you do not cover the pudding tin with a lid, else the steam will condense on it and drip back onto the pudding making the top soggy and gluey (yuck!)

You can serve it hot or cold, but it firms up as it cools, so you can make neater slices when cold.




The best way to serve it is with a sauce of your choice (I made chocolate sauce by melting chocolate chips and a touch of milk on a double boiler) but personally feel that a caramel sauce would have worked better with the nutmeg-flavoured pudding. A few nice combinations that come to mind are:

1.Butterscotch morsels and walnuts in the pudding and butterscotch/toffee sauce on top

2. Coffee grounds/instant coffee in the pudding and a coffee-caramel or coffee-chocolate sauce on top

3. Orange essence in the pudding and an orange-caramel sauce on top (add a splash of orange juice (the sugar-free, all-natural variety you get in cartons) to 3-4 teaspoons of sugar. Heat in a pan till sugar melts into the juice and caramelises, i.e. turns into a golden-brown sauce)

4. Vanilla in the pudding and chocolate sauce on top, or cocoa and chocolate chips in the pudding with the same chocolate sauce on top

5. Fresh fruit pieces in the pudding and the same fruit's coulis (fresh fruit blitzed with icing sugar in the mixer and then pressed through a sieve - basically a fresh fruit sauce) on top. Suitable fruits - mango, strawberry, chickoo.

So there you have it - a versatile recipe that lets you express your own culinary voice in a simple no-fuss way, with no exotic ingredients to worry about, too! AND it looks very professional when served restaurant-style - a wedge of pudding with a drizzle of sauce.

Enjoy!