Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

You may remember that I discovered a lovely blog that taught me how to make challah bread (see I Holler for Challah, if you missed it). She mentions in her recipe that you can add dried fruit to your bread, which I have done before, but as soon as I read that, my mind immediately ran to chocolate. If you can insert dried fruit, surely you could do the same with chocolate chips. So, the other day I decided to test my theory by rolling the chips inside each of the 3 ropes that make the braided bread. This came out pretty well, but in the future I think I would sprinkle a few chips between the strands as I braid them, just to distribute a few more chips around. Unfortunately, we weren't doing a good job of eating this delicious bread very fast, and it was a little bit dry, so I feared that it would soon mold. Then I remembered how to save stale bread: bread pudding!

My very scientific search of the web found many bread pudding recipes, and a few chocolate bread pudding recipes, but no chocolate chip bread pudding recipes, so I decided to invent it. I used the "Best Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce" recipe on AllRecipes.com because vanilla sauce is very important to bread pudding, in my opinion, and because it didn't call for insane amounts of eggs. I then substituted out the cup of raisins for a cup of milk chocolate chips- who wants raisins in a chocolate dish? Not this kid. Here is the ingredient list for the bread pudding:

• 3 eggs, beaten

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar

• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/4 cup butter, melted

• 3 cups whole milk

• 10 slices hearty farmhouse-style bread, toasted and cut into cubes ...or chocolate chip challah

• 1 cup chocolate chips

I started out by cubing my remaining chocolate chip challah. I might cube them a bit smaller next time.

waste not, want not!

After turning the oven on at 375, I started to get the pudding ingredients in order in a large bowl. The bowl needs to fit you bread pieces later, so plan accordingly. You simply whisk together the eggs, milk, cinnamon, butter, and sugars- no need for electric beaters. 

ready for whisking

 Then add in your chocolate chips. The cinnamon mades the batter look spotty, not the chocolate.

chocolate time!

The recipe doesn't really call for it, but web consensus is to let your bread soak in the creamy pudding mixture for at least 10 minutes, if not longer. I stirred mine a couple of times to rotate which pieces were at the bottom, and to distribute the chocolate chips, which tend to sink. 

soaking time

While my bread was soaking and oven was warming, I got my ingredients ready for the vanilla sauce. You'll need: 

• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 pinch ground cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

I melted the butter and kept it separate until I was ready to make the sauce, once the pudding was nearly done baking. It'll take around 10 minutes to thicken, so build that into your baking timeline so you won't have to wait on the sauce once the pudding is done. 

ready for action

Once the bread had soaked a while, I Pam'd a casserole dish and spooned the bread chunks into it, then poured the remaining liquid and chips over the whole thing. You don't want too much bread sticking out the top of the liquid or it may get overly brown. I baked for 25 minutes (convection) and then put the casserole lid on for the final 25. I took it off again at the end and cooked another 5-ish minutes until I was sure it was done. Checking for done-ness is a little tricky since a pudding is a bit liquidy and the chocolate complicates things, but I inserted a knife in the center and stopped cooking when it came out not completely dry, but mostly, and was pretty clean too. Here is the finished product: 

Mmmmm!

Extreme pudding closeup! 

After it cooled a little, I spooned portions into bowls and smothered them with the vanilla sauce. This was a little slice of heaven. It's not the most traditional bread pudding, but it's pretty darn tasty. 

Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce

Feeding Friendship: Irish Fare

Happy St. Patrick's Day, readers! In honor of the upcoming holiday, Ellie chose Irish food as our theme this time around. The Irish food you'll find most typically in our house is soda bread. I usually make Grandpa McAndrew's recipe (someone's grandpa, but not mine) from AllRecipes.com and add 1/2 tsp of salt to it. It's a pretty dense bread though, so you might also want to try this recipe from a Martha Stewart staffer's mother. But I make that all the time, so I wanted to branch out for the blog this time. With a week out of town and the cold that ensued from air travel, I didn't have much baking time, but when I saw this recipe I knew it was perfect. I acknowledge that there is a low probability that actual Irish people invented this, or even eat this recipe often, but I am certain they would be in favor of it. It combines 3 of many people's favorite vices into one spectacular dessert: beer, coffee, and chocolate. Without further ado, I give you Chocolate (Extra) Stout Layer Cake.

I got this from Bon Appetit's website and it sounded like it was really interesting, so I went out and picked up some Guinness Extra Stout and dark chocolate. I didn't really mean to get extra stout beer, but that was the only Guinness I saw, so that's what I bought. Here is BA's ingredient list: 

Ingredients

cake

• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 3/4 cup chocolate stout, regular stout, or porter
• 2/3 cup freshly brewed strong coffee

frosting

• 1 pound bittersweet chocolate (54% to 60% cacao), chopped
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

I started out by chopping up my newly acquired unsweetened chocolate. This is not the kind you're going to want to sneak pieces of while chopping- it's pretty gross with no sugar added. 

Ghirardelli 100% cacao 

I threw that in a double boiler and melted it down so it would have time to cool. This is also a good time to put your butter for the frosting out on the counter to come to room temperature. 

Next, I did something really stupid. Have you ever been sick and you just can't get your brain back to 100% for a few days? I've definitely had a case of the stupids recently, and while I was grabbing the dry ingredients for the flour part of the cake mixture, I dumped the first cup of sugar in with the flour. Not good. You are supposed to beat the sugar with the butter separately from the flour. Sigh. So I beat the butter with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar I didn't throw in the wrong bowl and hoped for the best. I did separate my eggs rather nicely though, so I have documented it for posterity. 

the beaten butter and not quite enough sugar

separated eggs 

Next you add in your egg yolks, one at a time, and then the melted chocolate. 

chocolate Rorschach test

Next it was time for some Guinness Stout and some strong coffee. I used hazelnut flavored coffee because I think it's yummy and am not a huge fan of regular coffee taste. 

As nearly every postcard in Ireland will tell you: Guinness is good for you! 

a little hazelnut french press brewing

After adding the liquids, my batter definitely got a little odd looking and sort of separated. This was fixed by adding the flour mixture and beating well with a hand mixer. 

Much better. I'll spare you the "before"

Next I put my egg whites in my stand mixer for a good beating. I used this time to watch a YouTube video from About.com on how to fold egg whites into batter successfully, never having done it before. I stopped when the whites had formed stiff peaks. 

a peak! 

Apparently the key is just to cut your batter in half with the spatula, turning it over gently, and gently combining the whites with the batter. 

folding in some egg whites

that's some light, fluffy stout batter!

The BA recipe calls for you to bake this in 2 9-inch cake pans and use parchment paper in the pans. In hindsight, I'm sure sure why the paper was necessary. It was convenient for lifting out the cakes to cool, but my paper was very stiff and make the sides of my cake uneven, reproducing the creases in the paper. If I did it again, I would just grease my cake pan well and forget the paper. In my convection oven on 350, the cake was done in 20 minutes, as opposed to 30 in a regular oven setting. 

no schmootz on the toothpick = done! 

While the cake was in the oven, I chopped up more semi sweet chocolate for the frosting and put the heavy cream on to simmer. You add the hot cream to the chopped chocolate, wait a minute, and then whisk until the chocolate is smooth. Observe: 

a mix of chopped baking pieces and chocolate chips

hot cream added

mmm...chocolatey

The recipe calls for espresso powder to be added to the cream. I didn't have any, and didn't want this to be a terribly coffee-flavored dessert, so I tipped in a little vanilla extract instead and called it a day. The frosting is still quite hot and very soupy at this point. I was making this fairly late and thought I might be able to frost the cake the same night I made it, so I put the frosting bowl in the freezer for about 45 minutes until it was a thick, frosting-like consistency. I ended up having to leave it covered in the fridge while I went to work anyway, since frosting a cake at midnight didn't seem like priority anymore, but the freezer trick works. I'll go ahead and say that this is definitely a frosting for those who like their chocolate bittersweet and their desserts not too sweet. I prefer the chocolate sour cream frosting I made at Christmas, but it never hurts to try something new. 

finally frosted! 

Guinness lurking in every bite!

the first piece

This is definitely a grown-up cake and you can tell that it isn't your standard cake mix cake. I kind of like it, and it would be perfect to serve in a pub, but it may not be everyone's favorite.