We finally got some bread pudding!

Of all the things that we have had over the years, we probably have never had a bread pudding.  If we did it was probably someone's leftovers but today at long last our budding pastry chef came through again serving up a bread pudding with rum sauce.  Bread pudding, according to Wikipedia - yes there is an entry - is usually made using stale (usually left-over) bread, and some combination of ingredients like milk, egg, suet, sugar or syrup, dried fruit, and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, mace or vanilla. The bread is soaked in the liquids, mixed with the other ingredients, and baked.

Something to do with old bread!

We have this in Hong Kong too!

Well constructed to look good!

Nice and moist but not soggy!

It may be served with a sweet sauce of some sort, such as whiskey sauce, rum sauce, or caramel sauce, but is typically sprinkled with sugar and eaten warm in squares or slices. In Canada it is often made with maple syrup. In Hong Kong, bread pudding is usually served with vanilla cream dressing. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, black bread is used to make "black bread pudding" (Schwarzbrotpudding). In Hungary it is called 'Máglyarakás' which is baked with whipped egg whites on top of it.  I put all that information from Wikipedia here because a number of us have connections to the various places mentioned with the exception of Canada. But the comment about Maple Syrup was pertinent to our Vermont escapades.

Rum sauce adds to the official presnetation!

And it is going fast!

And here we are eating stale bread baked in a pudding!

So this is just another way, like French Toast or bread dumplings in Central Europe, to use up your stale bread!!  Our chef today comes from Hong Kong and now we wonder if they serve this there or was she just adding to her collection of recipes. If so, as usual we are glad to be her guinea pigs.  Contrary to her concerns it was not soggy.  It was as moist as it should be which always makes bread pudding better.  A dry one can be really tough to get down and does so like a big glob of carbs.  The moistness makes it lighter and the rum sauce was not overwhelming and added a very nice touch.  If this was her first attempt it made for a good one and hopefully she'll be doing many more. That black bread one from Germany does sound interesting!! 

And it's gone!

We make it in Hungary too, not sure about Japan!

Someone's being bashful!

Happy with the outcome!