I don't love pumpkin. In fact, of all the pies that I will eat, pumpkin is my least favorite. (The pies that I will not eat being pecan and mincemeat). But in anticipation of fall and other seasonal merrymaking, I had somehow found my pantry stocked with three cans of the stuff. This is in addition to a pumpkin that Sydney had already roasted, another one that I had dutifully carved the night before Halloween and all of the resulting seeds that we had extracted and toasted.
On an unrelated note, a recent vice of mine has been bread. I shouldn't call it that, but with all of the silly diets out there, the idea that bread is "bad" for you always lingers in the back of my head. Then I remember my eating habits in Geneva and how I came away from that not weighing 200 lbs. And of course, I remember how wonderfully delicious fresh, warm bread is. The Whole Foods near my house sells freshly baked French and sourdough bread. It is cheap. It is generally warm (I don't buy it otherwise). It makes a perfect snack, accompanied with some cheddar cheese and some quince paste or apple butter. The downside to this bread (which is sold in long baguettes that I alone am surprisingly incapable of eating in one seating) is that it loses its appeal by the next morning. And by the second day, it is stale to the point of unappetizing.
Enter Pumpkin Bread Pudding. Perfect for the night when you have already roasted an entire pheasant but you still want dessert (which is always), but not one that involves seventeen ingredients, twelve steps, and three hours of chilling. And people may scoff at the idea of something called "bread pudding" being dessert. But they are very wrong.
Alas, this recipe yields a wonderfully light and custardy dish. Kind of like pumpkin-flavored baked French toast. Best right out of the oven. It is not too sweet though, so it is a good accompaniment to (homemade) vanilla ice cream. But that will be another post.
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup canned pumpkin (which is really annoying, because you still have half of a can left)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
Pinch of ground cloves
5 1/2 cups cubed (1-inch) day-old French or some other crusty bread
3/4 stick of unsalted butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk together in a large bowl the pumpkin, milk, sugar, eggs, salt, and spices.
Toss bread cubes with butter in another large bowl. Add pumpkin mixture and toss until evenly coated. Transfer to an ungreased 8-inch square baking dish and bake until the liquid has set like a custard, about 25-30 minutes.
This may or may not look appetizing. I can't tell. Since it is largely an orange mass of bread and pumpkin. But trust me, it is delicious!
Proof that people are willing to eat it even if it looks sort of garish.
1 comment:
Damn, that does look pretty good, and anybody who decries bread is an idiot. Diet nuts are always looking for something vilify.
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