The weather here has been hit and miss lately: we’ll have one beautiful day of strong, warm sunshine and then five days of persistent light rain and general dumpiness. “Good days for chicken Parm(esan)” one friend remarked the other day, and it seemed to sum it up just perfectly.
But Lauren of the Upper East Side Chronicle left me with chocolate bread pudding instead of chicken parm, and as long as I remember to microwave the dessert before applying whipped cream, I’m quite happy with her decision. She’s posted the recipe for you, too, here.
I love bread pudding, but it’s usually filled with vanilla and maybe bourbon or bourbon cream, so I was a little freaked out by the idea of bittersweet chocolate. I decided I’d think about that at the grocery store – one of many things to think about, it turned out.
Sadly, the dairy producers do not consult with cookbook writers when they size their products (sort of like Steve Martin’s Father of the Bride rant about hot dogs vs. hot dog buns), so I did some creative recipe re-jiggering to make it all work without a plethora of dairy products in my refrigerator.
*three cups of whole milk and one cup of cream became two cups of each
*three eggs became the rest of the egg beaters I had leftover from something else
*6 oz. bittersweet chocolate became lots of bittersweet chocolate with a handfull of leftover milk chocolate and a few peanut butter chips sprinkled on top.
The end result was a delight! Dense, not too chocolate-y or overly sweet, and even kinda pretty to look at with those browned peanut butter chips on top. Whipped cream – even the fake kind from the can – makes everything better. I’m a fan and I’ll be making it again next winter, I’m sure. I just don’t see it as part of this weekend’s BBQ.