Sunday, November 11, 2012

Second of Fall Desserts: Caramel Apple Bread Pudding

We had a potluck dinner at our church to welcome new members and to celebrate the coming of fall!
I made a salad and a dessert.  We had a decent harvest from our apple tree this year.  I had turned them into apple compote, and it was time to utilitze them.
 
I used the Tartine bread pudding recipe--I definitely like the bread-to-custard ratio in this recipe.  Where most bread puddings are mostly, well, bread, this one has pockets of custard here and there.
 
With this variation of the recipe, I stirred in the apple compote and rum-soaked raisins into the mixture of custard and bread.  Incidentally, I used King's Hawaiian sweet bread that I snagged at a discounted price.  I think bread puddings turn out better if softer, sweeter breads like brioche or croissants are used instead of the regular white bread.
 

I finished it off with my homemade caramel sauce.  Now off to potluck...
This was our dessert table...

Wow.  A smorgasbord of desserts!
There were cookies and brownies and some marshmallow rice krispy treat things....

Some sort of a berry pie, pecan pie, mincemeat pie...

 
There was a pumpkin streusel pie in a glass dish there.  And then lastly, my bread pudding.  Someone had already gotten into it...

...And this was the aftermath.  Just one lonely piece left.  Well, I'm glad people like it.


This one my parents ate for dessert the next day.  Even my mom, who normally doesn't like bread puddings, thought this was delicious.

I've been on a baking withdrawal lately, to tell the truth.  Contrary to what the original job title and description stated, I don't get to bake much at work--and I miss baking!  Hopefully with things starting to settle down, I get to bake a bit more often.