(n.) Cabindo: A condo on a lake, among tall old trees. Half cabin, half condo. My first home. This is a running journal of the renovations, projects, and general shoestring budget craziness.


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Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Baked Apple Croissant Bread Pudding

If fall fairies are dancing above your head (cousins of those frosty sugar plum fairies) like they are mine; it's time for some delicious baking.
I bake most Sunday evenings at the station, and will try to remember and share what I churn out for the guys 'n' gals on duty.

Previous hits have included banana creme pie cupcakes, caramel-drizzled shortcake cookies, pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese icing, pineapple upside down cupcakes, chocolate cream pie, fresh fried doughnuts, fudge brownies, peach cobbler, etc.

lemon meringue pie

Pb, caramel, and chocolate pretzel bark.
Yeah, they really hated that one. 4 times.

This time, I'd grabbed a big bag of apples on my way to duty, as the Bf and I went apple picking recently and I was inspired to make something tasty; but not with our hard-earned fruit. A cobbler? Caramel apples? Baked apples over vanilla ice cream? Peanut butter/apple something or another?
When I arrived at the station, my mind was made up for me when I spotted a mound of bread someone had dropped off, and about 2 dozen croissants among the haul.

*Side Note - People love giving food to firefighters:
and let me tell you, we love them back! 
If you have have some sort of event with a bunch of leftovers:
please take them to your local fire station. 
We will gladly accept them and give you a heartfelt thank you. 
Bring your cute kid, he'll probably be able to worm out
a little station tour and sit in the fire engine if he asks nicely.

Anyway, with all those sweet sweet carbs sitting there; it was time for bread pudding. I love bread pudding because its easy, quick, and can be made from just about any variety of bread. Last Thanksgiving I made it with day old Krispy Kremes.....that went over REALLY WELL. But I digress again.

Bam: make yourself some happy friends.

My baking is generally not precise, and often influenced by what's available rather than going to the store with an exacting list. Just like my home improvements....I sense a theme. (Lindsay = fly by the seat of her pants)

Bread pudding is basically some milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla.  Ie. all the important food groups.

A mythical food pyramid

My basic ratio is 1c milk: 1 egg: 1/3c sugar: 1/4 stick melted butter: a dash of vanilla: a pinch of salt. I also use a little cinnamon for good measure.
I scale up depending on the amount of ingredients and number of kitchen-stalkers.


With the inclusion of apples and the crowd of customers, I rounded up all the probies on duty and had them help me peel, core, and cube approximately one $%!+ load of apples. Thats 'boat' if you're reading this, Grandmother.

As common baking sense would dictate: I poured the mixture of wet/apple-y ingredients over the torn up bread (in a banking pan, not the counter, duh). I tossed it all around to make sure everything got coated with pudding goodness, then patted down the bread a little bit to make sure the custard liquid just covered the tops of the bread.
It baked in the oven at 350 for 45+ mins, while I fielded many polite and patient inquiries as to when desert would be ready. None of them even came over the intercom this time....how debonnaire.

Usually I make fresh caramel sauce to go with bread pudding, but I figured with the croissants and extra butter (a lot of recipes don't call for it) there was already enough artery-clogging goodness to take down an ox; so I'd keep it 'healthy' and go without. A light dusting of powdered sugar made it fancy enough for first impressions, but really; neither caramel nor powdered sugar mattered because the catering-sized pan full of it was gone in a flash anyway.

The bread pudding disappeared before I thought to take a picture.
But here is someone else's lovely Apple Croissant Bread Pudding for illustration purposes. 




-Lindsay

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