Warm and Fuzzies

Well, I figure that having eaten and having had a glass of wine, I should tell you about what I had for dessert, because blogs are all about oversharing and then apologizing for not updating enough. And having apologized in the last post, I figure it's overshare time.

Anyway, it's almost Mardi Gras! Yaaay! (Also I'm going to Nice for Carnaval this weekend. Mmmm Nice.) But the point of me saying it's almost Mardi Gras boils down to the fact that I wanted to make something at least mildly seasonal. I didn't want to deal with king cake or anything like that, so I went with...

BREAAAAD PUDDING!

Yeah, I should have a cleverer name for this. Did my other foods have cleverer names? Let's find out.

Nope! Hurrah. But that DOES mean I need some clever captions. Also, as forewarning, remember how for the cheesecake I did a terrible job recording what I was doing in my recipe notebook? Well, this time I did a terrible job of taking pictures. Yeah. This may be a bit... texty.

Anyway, off we go!

OH WHEN THE BREAD/GOES MARCHING IN

No recipe would be complete without ingredients! Well, except... Wait, no. Can't think of any exceptions this time. Clearly I'm tired if I can't be contrarian properly.

Anyway, you need:

1 (500 g) loaf white bread
3ish cups hot milk
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
5 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
100 g brown sugar
100 g white sugar
70ish g butter
1ish tsp Salt
1 green apple

Basically, this is about the simplest thing I've made. I worked across about 4 recipes to figure out proportions and ingredients and tips, and I still underestimated some stuff. If you're making this stateside, go with a pound loaf and you'll be fine. I should have gone with one more egg to properly drench the bread, but it still tastes delicious. But I digress!

LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS COUPER

So first things first, you're going to grease a baking pan. Surprisingly enough, mine was big enough this time. I was quite worried, but it held up like a champ.

Next, you're going to take that loaf of bread and cut it into small pieces. I used a loaf of white "pain de mie" (AKA sammich bread) and cut each slice into 16 to 20 cube-like things. Then, you dice yourself that green apple. Smaller slices were better for me, but as I've said before (look at Rob getting all fancy and self-referential), chopping things more finely makes me feel like more of a man. Plus, you want it to mix well with the bread. Which is, coincidentally enough (or is it? Maybe I did learn something from all those 31b's in Ms. Pullen's class. Note: 31b was Ms. Pullen's code for "Insufficient transition." It was the bane of our class.), is what you'll do next. Then you add a bit of cinnamon (around 1 tbsp), and mix that a bit maybe. Now, you take that butter and you melt it. Melt it all thorough-like, and then pour it over the bread and mix that around a bit. And then you'll put all that bread into the baking pan.

I'D MAKE A BOURBON ST. REFERENCE, BUT BOURBON WOULD HAVE PROBABLY BEEN REALLY GOOD IN THIS

Next, you're going to take that bowl you were using to hold the bread. What, you weren't using a bowl to hold the bread?

Siiiigh.

Okay, get a nice sized bowl. Now crack open those eggs... and BEAT THEM sparkle sparkle sparkle. Throw in the white sugar, the brown sugar, the vanilla, and the salt, and sure a bit of cinnamon for good measure. Now mix that around until the sugar dissolves. Slowly mix in the hot milk.

And sure, add in some more cinnamon if you feel like it.

WHEN THE LEVEE BAKES



Also, top it with some nutmeg and cinnamon.

 Now, pour that milky eggy mix over the bread. I spooned it over because I figured there was no way I'd get it all covered otherwise (again, should have used another egg and maybe a bit more milk). And now, this (I think?) is important, do NOT put it in the oven. Let it sit for about 10 or 15 minutes. I used this time to pre-heat the oven to T5 (around 160 F or 300 F or so?).

Did you wait? Good. NOW stick it in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Really, just do the knife test. It's more reliable, especially since ovens are tricky creatures. Jackals of the kitchen, they.





Fresh out of the oven...

 Once it's out of the oven, I strongly recommend eating it. It seemed to not really need much in terms of time to set (of course, I finished making and eating dinner before I ate any, so I may be wrong). It's amazing hot. It's amazing cold. It's generally amazing, but moreso if you pour milk on top of it.

...but it didn't last long.

All in all, I think that this is the recipe I'm most excited about having learned. It's quick, it's easy, it's versatile, and it's delicious. Seriously. I knocked out about a quarter of this thing within 24 hours. I've exercised some SERIOUS restraint and have it down to a bit less than half. And of course, it's too heavy for Bev's taste (or so she says), so more for me.








And as a parting shot, be jealous.

Pure dagnasty goodness.

Yes, I'm a terrible person.

Yes, I'm sorry. I did a terrible job of keeping up with the blog in February. I'd say that there were other factors (which there certainly were- I came down with a wicked cold and had a wrecked sleep schedule that made me lose any motivation to post up and down and all around, which was followed by a school break during which I was too busy/exhausted to post), but they really do a poor job of excusing my lack of presence out here. So I'm going to TRY to get a couple of regalia posts up, along with maybe a run on what I've been up to and such. So, without further ado, off we go to our first regalia!

(NOTE: Be warned. I'm dangerously sober right now.)

Okay, le tme dig around to find this darned notebook so I can recipe it up and all (think of it like ruh-sipe rather than reh-si-pee). Also that typo is just DARING me to correct it, but I won't. This time.

Oh good Lord I did a terrible job of putting together this recipe. But here goes an attempt on chronologizing all the shenanigans that occurred on THAT FATEFUL DAY.

That's right. We're doing...

CTHULHU CHEESECAKE

It took me a while to come up with that name, but it became really evident once I saw what I had wrought. It's pretty much a chocolate berry cheesecake that I tried to layer into a chocolate and non-chocolate part. It was... stressful. I was also doing this rather late at night, which only exacerbated things. But anyway!

ASSEMBLING THE VASSALS

Good lord is that a lot of stuff. And that
doesn't even have the berries and eggs. My God.

So here are all the things you'll need to make your very own Eldritch abomination cake.

250 g chocolate covered graham crackers (I used chocolate covered Petit Beurre, because there are no graham crackers in Combs la Ville)
60 g butter, melted
720 g cream cheese (again, used Petit Suisse because no real cream cheese in Combs)
100 g white sugar, plus extra (yeah, I did an absolutely TERRIBLE job of chronicling this)
3 tbsp flour
2-3 tbsp confectioner's sugar
Some undefined amount of eggs (4 sounds right)
60 mL whipping cream
120 g cocoa powder
Milk
Vanilla
Lemon juice
750 g frozen berry mix

Yeah, you can tell this is about to get stressful.

CRUSTY OLD ABOMINATIONS

This part's simple enough- you crush all those graham crackers. Then, you pour the melted butter over all that. You mix that around all nice-like, and then you press it into a greased pie pan.

Of course, this would be simple if you weren't me. Yeah, I maybe should have thought about some of the omens I was looking at getting started on this thing. Such as Bev taking forever in the grocery store (she had given me a ride over there, which was nice of her, but she took about 45 minutes longer than she said she would), meaning I got started later. And then the fact that the pack of things I had bought would not cover the bottom of my pie pan, forcing me to go get more while my hands were all covered in chocolate. Fine, I washed off the chocolate first, but it was stressful.

But you finish and you get a nice looking crust, like so:

STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER (Okay, fine, there were no frozen strawberries, so I used mixed berries. Doesn't have the same ring to it.)

First off, you thaw those berries. You throw in 2 tbsp flour, 2-3 tbsp confectioner's sugar to sweeten it (just go to taste I guess), add some water, and crush the berries. The recipe I stole totally did not steal from at all had some complicated business about dividing up the berries and all. I was having none of it. You want to boil it to get things a bit juicier and nice and fun. Like the blood of a thousand virgins, or something gothy and Lovecraftian like that.

The finished first layer.

Meanwhile, you take a nice sized bowl and beat 360 g cream cheese until it's "fluffy." I have trouble imagining cream cheese being fluffy, so I just guessed. Then, as I wrote in my notebook, "Add some vanilla for kicks." Then throw in a bit of lemon juice and 2 eggs. Beat it until it's JUST smooth. If you beat it more, Cthulhu will crack your cheesecake even more than he did with mine. Also add 50 g sugar and I guess beat that in too? Terrible lab notebook here.

Also cool that berry mix.

Then, let's move onwards to...

COUNT CHOCULA DUDE

First, beat that cream cheese until smooth. (Wow, this is a violent recipe. No wonder it's Cthulhu cheesecake.) Combine 50 g sugar with 1 tbsp flour, and beat that into the cheese until it's smooth.

Now things get REALLY unexact. Throw some butter into a saucepan. Don't make the mistake I did and add the cocoa to the butter while it's still cold. Add some sugar, some more butter, and some milk to taste. You'll want it dark, so think melted chocolate chips. That's right. I made my own freaking chocolate-ish thing here. Anyway, make sure it's smooth and melty. Let it cool.

Now, stir in the vanilla (eyeball it), and 60 mL whipping cream into the cheese mix. And now stir in the chocolate. Add two eggs and beat until smooth.

Teaching it to mock me was a mistake.

A DARK ASSEMBLY

Okay, so that crust? You remember that? Take that crust. Good.

Pour in your berry (white) cheesecake batter. Spoon some of that berry mix on top. Having done this, I would recommend doing so liberally and covering the layer with it to give better separation, but you don't want it so thick that it'll make things fall apart. Don't use all the berries yet. I did like teaspoonish drops to keep from disrupting the batter toooo much and because I didn't think I'd need more.

Also, use a bigger pan than I did.

Now, put on the chocolate layer. See, the problem with these layers is that the chocolate will tend to seep down into the white layer. Maybe. It ended up being very uneven, but I had a substantially greater volume of the chocolate stuff, so maybe it didn't mix at all. Anyhoo, now you want to add on more of that berry mix to make some pretty designs if you want. I did, and they got a bit crispy, so be careful. Also, you may want to hold onto extra berry stuff as a sauce for later, maybe with some more confectioner's sugar and cream cheese.

[Aside: Oh, of course there's yelling now. Thanks Bev!]

You'll want to throw it into the oven on T5, which is like 160 C, so about 300 F, for a while. I gave up on time for this one and just waited for a knife to come out with only the berries (since they'll juice up).

This is why it got the name. Look at the eeeyeesss. It also
MADLY deflated.

Of course, the oven I was using was a bit too hot, and the cheesecake showed that. Also, the pan I used was far too shallow, which resulted in more problems, especially in cooling. As for cooling, do it slowly. Duh. I think I left it in the oven for a while and moved it to the fridge like the next morning maybe? Wait, no. I didn't wait that long. Should have, though.

Despite the prevalence of burny and its general and generally horrific appearance, it was quite delicious.

In hindsight, here's how I could have made things better:

1. Used another back of stuff for crust maybe.
2. Cooked it on a lower heat for longer.
3. Actually written the recipe a bit instead of all this vagueness.
4. Used a deeper pan.

Regardless, now I know, and I won't do another cheesecake when I'm that tired and stressed. But hey! Here are pictures of the finished product!

Okay, so the designs kiiinda worked. Would have worked better with less burning of course. And hey, massive deflation, but minimal cracking!

Cthulhu omflgathn?

Yeah, look at that beast. King of R'yleh, that one.

Anyhoo, I'ma go eat, and then hopefully be back with bread pudding. Which was a far happier experience than Cthulhu up there.