It was a beautifully cool and cloudy morning for the Run for Hope race for cancer research, previously known as the Terry Fox Run.
Cliff had donned his special “Race for Kids” running vest which he raced in at the Lake Placid Iron Man event some years back, re-telling to me the story of Terry Fox, a fellow Canadian. As we ran among the thousands of runners, I saw how Cliff’s life, led with zest, gratitude and health, was an inspiration to many after surviving cancer. Having not trained very much, it was a surprisingly comfortable 10-kilometre run, made fun only because of Cliff’s quirky jokes and his steady pacing.
Yes, Cliff just HAD to write “TEAM TAM” haha.
An hour later, we saw the Finish Line in sight, and he said to me, “Wai Jia, RUN LIKE YOU STOLE SOMETHING!”
As soon as we got home, I was intent on making him a treat. After cooking a wholesome lunch of purple yams, sunshine-colored corn and brown fried rice (I shall save this for another post), I decided to top it off with a dessert to thank him for being such a wonderful companion and running partner.
Looking into the fridge, I saw how much old bread we had, given to us generously by Zhou yeye who had received them from passers-by when he busks at the train station. Nowadays, he always gives us a bag of bread every Thursday, since he doesn’t fancy bread but gets a lot of it, and we love bread!
And what better way to make use of old bread than to make bread pudding, or so I’ve heard! I had never tried it before, and so decided to give it a go. This recipe is so quick and easy for a most satisfying dessert. After a quick 5-minute google on recipes online, I decided to come up with my own version. Here goes!
The thing I love about bread pudding is how all the ingredients can just about be found in any regular kitchen. Not only that, it turns really simple ingredients and bread that could have been thrown out into delectable comfort food. Oh oh, and I simply love the fact that you can make it your very own by replacing raisins with just about anything yummy you can think of. I used sweet dried berries and an assortment of nuts, but I’m sure anything sweet from chopped figs to chocolate shavings to apples (yes I saw a delicious recipe which had sliced apples) would work!
Food for Love:
– Old bread (I had an entire loaf of softmeal bread and a couple of slices of wholemeal bread.)
– 2 tablespoons of melted butter
– 4 eggs
– 2 and a half cups of low-fat milk
– 1/3 cup of brown sugar (Most recipes will indicate at least a cup of sugar, but I wanted to keep this just mildly sweet, to give room for a fragrant maple syrup drizzle, or an indulgent scoop of ice-cream if the Hungry Husband fancied it.
– 2 to 3 teaspoons of Cinnamon powder ( I love to over-do this!)
– 1 teaspoon of Nutmeg powder
– 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (haha, I suspect I poured in more than a teaspoon too!)
– Any kind of berries (Most bread pudding recipes will use raisins, but since we have a cupboard full of dried apricots, blueberries, cranberries, walnuts, almonds and cashews shipped over by Cliff’s wonderful mum, I thought to incorporate it all in for a healthy party mix!)
Many recipes play up the fact that bread pudding is so easy to make, that they simply stack the old bread, pour all the milk sauce over, put the raisins as a convenient topping and make up what is lacking in effort with an overdose of sugar. I didn’t want to do that, so I chose to blanket each layer of bread with the milk sauce and dried fruit, and keep sugar to a minimum, so the dessert would be filled with fibre and the natural taste of dried fruit and nuts.
It only takes an extra few minutes, but makes a whole lot of difference!
The Act
1. Identify all the old bread you can find in your home. White bread, soft-meal, whole-meal… Just about any kind will work. Keep the crust if you like- I realize it actually adds a nice texture to the pudding. Got any crummy bread ends you don’t like to eat or keep? They’re perfect for this dessert!
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the melted butter, milk, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. As you can tell, I was more than generous with the cinnamon powder, which gives a beautiful aroma to this simple home-made dessert. This is what I call the milk sauce.
3. Now the fun begins- start layering! Tear your bread slices haphazardly- yes there is no skill required for this. In fact, I think this would be a GREAT home project to do with kids. I simply loved how the white soft-meal bread contrasted with the speckled multi-grain bread, creating more colors and texture.
4. Sprinkle a layer of dried fruits or nuts, or anything else you can think of.
4. Using a soup ladle, drench the bread layer with your milk sauce. Most recipes just indicate sprinkling raisins and pouring the milk sauce just once on top of all the layers, but hey, why not have more fun?
Keep doing this until you reach about three or four layers (yes, it’s like making lagsagne, only much simpler), then press the bread downwards to make it compact and ensure it soaks up the milk sauce. If you run out of the milk sauce before your bread pieces are soaked up, don’t worry- just pour in some low-fat milk to top it up. A little bit of extra milk doesn’t hurt!
Then have fun blanketing the top layer with a generous dose of toppings.
5. Pop it into a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes and that’s it! Haha, I very nearly burnt the pudding while we were enjoying lunch in the dining room!
Because of the cinammon, nutmeg, vanilla and the gorgeous berries and nuts which had been toasted in the oven,
the kitchen smelled AMAZING.
6. Since the bread pudding was only very mildly sweet, I drizzled it lightly with maple syrup.
Very little added sugar was used in this recipe, so every bite of the natural fruit and bread could be savoured.
According to Cliff, bread pudding has never been his favourite. But the wholesome fruit and nuts layered in between the sticky, gooey bread made this a winner. The best part is, you can make a whole tray of it for family or guests, toss it in the fridge, and the heavenly aroma and taste still comes to life when you heat it in the microwave.
You can even have this for breakfast!
Try your own variations and enjoy this quick recipe!