Apples are not the first fruit I think of to go into bread pudding. For some reason, things like cherries, raspberries and especially various dried fruits seem like more obvious choices to me, despite the popularity of the apple as a baking fruit. They are softer and, in the case of dried fruit, more absorbent. Both seem like better matches for a custardy and tender bread pudding than a crisp-tender baked apple. But I am not one to let minor culinary prejudices get in my way when I have an idea in my head and when the combination of bourbon and apples called to me, I decided to try them in a bread pudding together instead of going with a standby apple dessert, such as a cobbler, pie or crisp.

And I’m certainly glad I gave this particular dessert a try because it turned out better than I had hoped - and I think it converted me to someone who likes apple in bread pudding! The apples were lightly caramelized before being mixed into the custard and bread mixture that is the base of the pudding, which gave them a bit of extra time to soften up before the dessert went into the oven. The fruit ended up with that perfect crisp-tender texture that you want in a baking apple and added a nice contrast to the very soft bread pudding base.

Apple and bourbon always make a good combination - particularly when cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla are also tossed into the mix - so the flavor of this dish was delicious. I used a fairly plain and soft white bread (store bought, sandwich-sliced potato bread, to be exact) and I did not bother to “stale” my bread, since I don’t find that doing so makes a big impact on the outcome of the pudding. The dessert will be slightly more indulgent if you use a butter and/or egg rich bread, like brioche or challah. Cinnamon swirl bread would be a pretty good choice, too.

Serve warm, either plain or with ice cream. If you want to take it really over the top, though, mix up a bit of the butterscotch sauce I made and spoon it on while hot. It’s not as thick as anything you’ll find at the ice cream parlor, but the flavor is great and it really makes this dish addictive. (more…)

 Rice pudding is comfort food, no question about it. Sweet and creamy, it’s a relatively substantial custard dish made thick with rice and (usually) studded with juicy raisins. I usually make mine on the stovetop, starting either with leftover rice or with uncooked rice, depending on what is available to me at the moment. I’ve even turned stove-cooked rice pudding into ice cream before. While I like all of these recipes, I can’t help but want to experiment, so this batch of rice pudding got baked in the oven to give it a more custardy consistency.

To put it simply and cut the suspense, baked rice pudding is delicious. This one dish is not only tasty, but it is really interesting because it is essentially two desserts in one. The pudding is a mixture of rice and a sweet custard base, so while it bakes, it separates into two layers: a sweet rice pudding on the bottom and silky smooth custard on top. It is unlike any other rice pudding I’ve tasted. The rice layer is a bit more solid than your average rice pudding, since the weight of the grains pull them down to the bottom of the pan, while the custard/pudding rises to the top, so the first bite can be a bit of a surprise. That said, the two-layer effect doesn’t take anything away from the dish (even if you’re not a fan of the separation at first) because everything mixes together while you eat.

I baked the pudding in a water bath and the custard turned out to be silky smooth as a result. I scraped a vanilla bean into the mix as I put it together, but you can use vanilla extract if you don’t have any whole beans to use. I kept the spices - cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom - to relatively low levels so they didn’t overwhelm the vanilla flavor. Next time I’m going to add in some dried cranberries in addition to the raisins.

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The Chocolate Hazelnut Spread I made the other day was delicious, chocolaty and not-too-sweet with a good hazelnut flavor. I began to wonder, after making it, how it would work with other nuts. Hazelnut and chocolate have a very similar flavor profile, but I decided to try the recipe with ground almonds in place of the hazelnuts. The result was a bit milder than the hazelnut spread, but no less appealing. It struck me that it would be a wonderful filling for a sandwich cookie, standing in the place of the ultra-sugary spreads (or frostings) that usually fill the space.

For the cookies, I used a nut-packed butter cookie recipe that I spotted in Cookie Craft. The cookies were said to be very flavorful and, as the cookbook is geared towards cookies that are rolled and shaped, I figured that it would be a very easy dough to work with. It was. The dough came together quickly and handled like a dream, even without chilling it. The cookies held their shape with virtually no spreading in the oven, too.

On their own, the cookies were fairly crisp and, while they were buttery and not at all hard, they were dense because there is no leavening in this recipe. Once they were paired with the filling, the cookies changed quite dramatically. They moistened and became softer, almost cake-like (friand-like, for those of you who are familiar with the almond-rich cakes), and melded into the chocolate filling. The almond flavor and texture really came through once the cookies reached this point and it made for a lovely contrast to most sandwich cookies, where the cookie and filling remain detached.

The cocoa powder topping is optional for these cookies. The cocoa actually does add a bit of extra chocolate flavor, but the cookies are actually very beautiful plain, as you can then see the flecks of nuts throughout the dough. I ended up dusting half and leaving half undusted and the black/white contrast made for a nice presentation for serving. You can also use powdered sugar to finish these off, if you prefer.

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Nutella is a creamy, rich, chocolate and hazelnut spread that is popular all over the world. The first time I had it, I must have eaten a half-jar of the stuff with a whole baguette and probably would have finished off the jar if the bakery hadn’t been closed already. I would venture to say that it is more widely used outside the US than in it (possibly because of a major difference in the compositionof the US-produced Nutella and imported Nutella), which is a shame because real Nutella is a wonderful thing.

Nutella is also not exactly health food. The spread gets about half its calories from fat and, unlike peanut butter or other nut spreads, the rest is primarily made up of sugar. Fat and sugar together often taste good (especially here, where chocolate is also involved), but because Nutella happens to be one of the most perfect spreads for toast, they don’t exactly make for a balanced breakfast. As a result, I only have Nutella rarely when I can get a real - by which I mean imported - jar of the stuff.

Recently, I came across a recipe for a low fat chocolate hazelnut spreadthat sounded like it could be the answer to my breakfast dilemma - or could at least take the edge off the guilt if I decided to go back for a second slice. The spread is a lightened, homemade version of Nutella. It doesn’t quite have the ultra-creamy consistency of the original, but it is quick to make and tastes similar, with a nutty/chocolaty flavor. The spread is also not too sweet, so there is nothing to mask the natural flavor of cocoa or hazelnut. It worked out beautifully on toast spread with a little bit of butter and while I wouldn’t count on it as a full time substitute for Nutella, it’s not a bad option at all for something you can make at home to spread on crepes, bananas or to stir into oatmeal.

The recipe below calls for hazelnut meal, which you should be able to find at a natural foods store or, occasionally, in stock at Trader Joe’s. Hazelnut meal is just finely ground hazelnuts, so if you cannot find it, you can make your own by pulsing nuts in the food processor. If you’re taking this route, add in the cornstarch from the recipe below while you pulse the nuts, as it will help keep them grinding evenly and not turning immediately into a nut butter. Definitely eat the finished spread at room temperature. The flavor and consistency are the best when it is not chilled.

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Some desserts are classics and never get taken off the menu, year after year. Other desserts follow trends, going in and out of style and from being everywhere to nowhere in the blink of an eye. The classics get passed over for trendier desserts with regularity since many diners know that the classic will be good and can’t resist the novelty and the potential of the newer desserts. It is probably for this very reason that I didn’t have tiramisu for years, though it was once one of my very favorite desserts. Once I realized that it had been so long, however, I decided that things needed to change. I made a tiramisu.

The appeal of tiramisu, for me, is that it is an easy make-ahead dessert. I keep my recipe simple by using a no-cook mascarpone cream and by using store-bought ladyfingers. Mine were from Trader Joe’s, but any quality brand will work well. You’ll need about 30 for this dessert, but since sometimes I’m able to squeeze a couple more into the pan, you might want to make sure you have extras. The dessert should be made the night before you intend to serve it to let the flavors meld together. When finished, the tiramisu has a light and creamy texture that seems to melt right into your mouth. Since the ingredients are rich, it is very filling and can be served in small portions.

For this particular batch, I wanted to impart a mocha element, rather than going for a straight coffee one. I did this by adding a generous amound of shaved dark chocolate between the layers and by adding creme de cacao into the coffee dip for an extra chocolate flavor that didn’t change the consistency of the dip. The overall effect is subtle, but delicious.

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Rice pudding is a favorite dish of mine, though I don’t have all that often. The dish that has been around for centuries, and has traveled around the globe from culture to culture, with few changes to the basic recipe - rice cooked until creamy with milk - along the way, if you look past the added spices and flavorings that tend to get thrown in. Perhaps it is the fact that the dish is so consistently similar from place to place and version to version that makes me overlook it in favor of cakes and other things at dessert. As an alternative, I decided to try something a little different with rice pudding and turn it into a breakfast dish. In place of cream or whipped cream, I folded thick Greek-style yogurt into my pudding for a light, fresh-tasting twist on a classic.

I started this rice pudding with leftover rice, rather than using uncooked rice and starting it from scratch. Usually, I prefer the later method, but it is good to have a recipe that uses leftover rice on hand for those occasions when you have a lot of cooked rice filling up the fridge - such as when you get chinese take-out and have an entire extra container of rice. The leftover container of rice was brown rice, in this case. I’ve found that brown rice is sturdier than many white rices, maintains a firmer feel after even a long cooking period and does not absorb quite as much liquid. While I generally shoot for a super creamy consistency in a strictly dessert rice pudding, I like the texture that the brown rice adds to this version of the pudding (which is creamy, just not quite as creamy as some I’ve had where the rice is cooked down to nothing). White rice will work here, too, if you don’t want to use brown.

The thick Greek yogurt (0% fat, from Trader Joe’s, although any kind is fine) folded in beautifully and made the pudding light, both texturally and nutritionally speaking. It gives the dish a little bit of tang, which makes it seem less rich and less indulgent than its whipped-cream enriched dessert counterpart, although it is no less delicious.
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