Thursday, February 4, 2010

Bread + pudding= comfort



Bread pudding, for many is a comfort food.  As I was about to try my hand at this delightful desert I thought to my self;’ where did it originate’? How often do we eat things without a thought about the origin of it? There is such a simple pleasure in knowing and to better appreciate things. Puddings have a long and interesting history. I will try to keep it short.Many early puddings were meats, not sweets. Bread pudding was born in the 13th century. Known as "poor man's pudding”, it was created as a means of salvaging stale bread. The bread was soaked in milk or water, then sugar, butter, fruit, and/or spices were added, and then it was baked. Sometimes the mixture was housed in a "sop," a hollowed out loaf of bread. Modern bread pudding is made by pouring custard and other flavorings over cubed bread and then baking it. Variations of this recipe are as limitless as the imagination. Our idea about bread pudding will also be determined by whatever part of the world we are from. Now that we know a bit about this awesome dessert/breakfast we can at least think about how far we came as a human race and how much more we can look forward to better recipes in the years/centuries ahead… Never stop thinking about the simple things people…I am sharing with you a picture of my bread pudding topped with a maple-butterscotch sauce. What more can the taste buds ask for?!