DESSERTS

I’m kinda obsessed with bread pudding. I love bread, and I love pudding. So it works out really well for me.

Peach Bread Pudding with a Raspberry Compote

Bread pudding is a really great dessert. Its not too heavy, not too
sweet. This recipe is made with canned peaches, so it can really be
made at any time of the year. Its simple and easy. This recipe is for
mini bread puddings. It makes about 8 individual servings. The recipe
can be easily cut in half to accommodate less servings as well.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound of challah or french bread
1 cup of buttermilk
1 cup of half and half
5 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of cloves
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 29oz can of peach halfs, chopped

Raspberry compote:

4 pints of fresh raspberries
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
2 tablespoons of lime juice

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Spray each ramekin with cooking spray, set aside.
3. Cut the bread into 1/2 inch cubes
4. Mix together eggs, milk, half and half, sugars, spices, and vanilla.
5. Add the bread to the egg mixture and combine until the bread is
soaked thoroughly.
6. Add the chopped peaches, and stir until combined.
7. Fill each ramekin with the bread and peaches until it reaches the top.
8. Set all the ramekins in a roasting pot, and fill with water so it
reaches half way up each ramekin.
9. Bake for 30 – 40 min, or until top is golden brown.

For the Raspberry compote:
1. Combine raspberries, lime juice, and sugar in a blender. Blend
until smooth and serve over top the bread pudding.

{ 3 comments }

Cobbler is my second love, next to mashed potatoes. Mixed berry/fruit cobbler is so so good. I made this peach, strawberry, and blueberry cobbler. I even used canned peaches, and it was still amazing. I think the secret is the sweet biscuit topping, and using vanilla bean. I used a Martha recipe for peach and blueberry cobbler, but added strawberries. Its all gone now, maybe I should make more. Writing this is making me want some right now, for breakfast.

Click here for the recipe. Have a great weekend!

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Here are the cupcakes from all the wrappers I posted. Well, just one cupcake. It was pretty good. I used a recipe from issue 36 of Donna Hay. The cupcakes were really good, and I really like the frosting.

Berry Cupcakes:

4 oz of unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups of plain all purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 cup of milk
1/3 cup of raspberries
1/4 cup of blueberries

creamy topping:
10 oz of heavy cream
31/2 oz of store bought meringues, crushed
4 oz of raspberries crushed

Preheat oven to 320 degrees. Place butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 15 minutes, or until pale and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition. Fold through the flour, baking powder and milk. Spoon the mixture into a 4 oz capacity muffin tins lined with papers. Press two raspberries and blueberries into the center of each cake and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown on top ( I think I baked it for 25 minutes). To make the creamy topping, combine the whipped cream, meringue and raspberries in a bowl. Spoon over cooled cakes and serve.

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…with green tea cheesecake!

Here are some images and a recipe for green tea cheesecake with mint and raspberries. I coped the recipe from epicurious, and changed the amount of matcha. I also have some suggestions about match as it is kind of a hard thing to find.

Matcha is finely ground green tea leaves. If you want good matcha, go to a specialty tea store and buy some there. DO NOT buy it at trader Joe’s (sorry Joe!). The matcha latte powder or whatever the have going on there has a lot of sugar, which good matcha should not have, and green food coloring! Which is really weird, because if you had green tea leaves then it would be green right? They are just adding a bunch of other stuff, and not using very high quality ingredients. Matcha should taste like green tea, not sweetened green tea or something. Anyway, so get good matcha, it makes a difference. This recipe says you can use ground tea from tea bags, theoretically that is the same thing, but its not. Go buy matcha.

Here is the recipe I used from epicurious. I added more matcha, and didn’t make the tisane because I didn’t think it needed it, although it probably would have been really good.

Ingredients:
1 cup (generous) ground shortbread cookies (about 6 ounces)
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature (do not use whipped or “light” products)
1/2 cup (packed) fromage blanc*
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons of matcha ( I really like to taste the tea)

Preheat oven to 325°F. Press cookie crumbs firmly onto bottom (not
sides) of 8-inch-diameter spring form pan. Wrap outside of pan tightly
with 3 layers of heavy-duty foil. This is a really important step. Go and buy the extra long tin foil and wrap it really really tight. Using electric mixer, beat cream
cheese, fromage blanc, and sugar in large bowl until smooth. Add eggs 1
at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition. Beat in
green tea powder until smooth. Pour batter over prepared crust in pan.
Place cake in roasting pan; add enough hot water to roasting pan to come
halfway up sides of spring form pan.

Bake cake until set but center moves very slightly when pan is gently
shaken, about 1 hour. Remove cake from roasting pan; cool 1 hour at
room temperature. Refrigerate uncovered overnight. (Can be prepared 2
days ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.)

The end! Cheese cake is so good. Yummmmm

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I made this recipe the other day only because I had left over pie crusts in the freezer and wanted to use them. Pre made pie crusts are such a great thing, so most of the hard work is already done. I’m a huge fan of pre made stuff for something simple like hand pies. I spied some pretty amazing blackberries at the market, so I thought it might be a good combo with green apples. Here is the recipe:

1 pint of fresh black berries
1 cup, about 1 green apple, grated
2 tablespoon flour
some cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
milk or eggs for brushing  the tops
sugar in the raw for sprinkling the tops

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Thaw out pie crusts. I used 3 pie crusts, so one and a half boxes.

2. In a medium or large size saucepan, basically dump all the ingredients in there, aside from the sugar and milk or eggs for the tops of the finished hand pies. Cook all of it at medium heat until it seems ready, because there is no liquid, it won’t boil, so just guess. I would say 5 to 10 min.

3. Roll out the pie crusts and cut out 5″ circles from them. I got 9 circles, three for each crust.  Then fill with the blackberry and apple mixture and pinch the sides.

4. Brush the top with eggs or milk and sprinkle with sugar in the raw, or regular sugar, whatever you prefer. I didn’t cut a slit in the top because I felt like it didn’t really need it. I didn’t get much spill out.

5. Bake of a cookie sheet for 25 minutes.

Ta Da! The end. Yummy yummy.

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