Who is up for some delicious donut pudding to warm up a wintery day?
This month's book and recipe combination comes straight from lovable romance heroine Blair Mallory herself. This dessert was a feature in Linda Howard's romantic suspense novel Drop Dead Gorgeous, the second Blair Mallory book. This title is available in multiple formats from Brooke County libraries so check it out!
As always, please feel free to let us know that you tried this out, either here in the comments or on one of our social media pages. We would love to hear about it!
Without further babbling from us... here's Blair!
There’s, like, a hundred different versions of this recipe. I only make it for special occasions or when I want to suck up to somebody, because it’s so sweet it makes your teeth hurt. And I don’t put raisins in my bread pudding; raisins are a Yankee thing. I think they look like bugs.
To begin with, use a 13 x 9-inch glass pan. The glass is so the pudding won’t stick. If you want to use a disposable aluminum pan, then I guess it doesn’t matter if the pudding sticks.
Anyway, preheat the oven to 350. That’s Fahrenheit. I don’t do Kelvin or Celsius because they’re just weird.
Here’s what you need:
2 dozen Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts, torn into little chunks. Actually, I like the crullers better than the glazed doughnuts, because the texture seems more bread-pudding-like, but go with your favorite. Put the chunks in a large bowl.
3 eggs, beaten. You may like yours merely subdued, but I want mine beaten. Don’t add them to the doughnuts yet.
1 can sweetened condensed milk. Add to eggs. Beat together.
Vanilla flavoring to taste. Add to milk and egg mixture. Use 1 teaspoon if you don’t like a strong vanilla taste, add more if you do. The whole point of this is to make the bread pudding the way you like it.
½ stick melted butter
Cinnamon to taste. It takes way more cinnamon than you probably expect, but start out with a little and keep adding until it tastes right.
Pour all this into the bowl of doughnut chunks, and stir. It’ll be too dry, because now you have to make a choice. You can either put in a can of fruit cocktail, with the juice, which gives the pudding enough moisture—and in a weird way the fruit cocktail cuts down on the sweetness—or, if the idea of fruit cocktail in a bread pudding gives you the heebie-jeebies, just start adding milk, a little at a time, and stirring it in, until the texture seems right to you, not so juicy that it’s soup but moist enough that it’s kind of like a lumpy cake batter.
Now you have another choice to make: chopped pecans, or no chopped pecans. I love it with the pecans. If you decide to use them, add 1 cup to the mixture and stir well.
You can also add a little nutmeg, about 1 teaspoon, if you like. I usually don’t.
Pour into pan and bake for 30 minutes. Check with a toothpick to see if it’s done. If it isn’t, let it cook for another five minutes and check it again. Ovens are weird; what’s 350 on mine might be 342 on someone else’s. And I don’t get the altitude thing at all.
Take it out and let it cool. Add a glaze if you like, then dig in. If you don’t want to fool with a glaze but the pudding looks naked with nothing on top, then buy some cans of ready-made frosting and put it on. Talk about sugar overload. Whoa, Mama. If you want to make a glaze, here are two recipes:
Simple Sugar Glaze
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons milk or water
Mix together, and beat until it becomes smooth and pourable. Drizzle over the bread pudding. If this isn’t enough, make more.
Buttermilk Glaze
¼ cup buttermilk
½ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon soda
1½ teaspoons cornstarch
¼ cup margarine
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Combine first five ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a boil, remove from heat. Cool slightly, then stir in the vanilla. Pour over the pudding.
That’s it. Have fun! —Blair
*Note images and recipe do not belong to BCPL. They are courtesy of Google Images and Overdrive media.
Check out Drop Dead Gorgeous on our Ebook site WV Reads or in our physical locations!
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