Thursday, November 29, 2007

Second Life



I’ve wanted to make this dish ever since I first witnessed the transformation of stale bread into moist pudding while working the counter of a local bakery in high school. I was so impressed by the frugality with which the baker could turn a worthless product into an expensive one. Since then, finding bread pudding on a dessert menu has saved me after many unfulfilling meals. Offering a hearty bread pudding is a restaurant’s way of making it okay to consume the mass of a second entrée while pretending you’re having dessert.

I chopped stale corn and blueberry muffins into chunks along with two apples, two eggs, a splash of milk, a squirt of honey, lemon zest, grated ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and more cinnamon on top for an added browning effect. The pudding consisted entirely of ingredients I had on hand with many of them (muffins, lemon, apple, ginger) not fresh enough to be used for their standard purposes. But together, resurrected, they created an entirely new and wonderful food.

The use of the lemon zest and ginger comes from my recent reading of an English food history, while a recipe for “brood mit appelen” from a Dutch family cookbook inspired the presence of the apple. However, I merely glanced at these recipes and was surprised at how simple it was to fulfill a long standing culinary desire. Please note the cross section of apple chunks in the photo, and just imagine how moist this is.

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3 comments:

Dave said...

I didn't know that you kept muffins around. I will be on the lookout for day olds at bakeries so I can try and make this, it looks amazing. How wet was it?

Aaron Kagan said...

SO wet. This was really perhaps the best met expectation of any dish I've made. Muffins were from my mom in FL. That was in an original draft, but it was plenty long enough so something had to go. I was just so excited to talk about it!

Karen B said...

this looks absolutely amazing... probably it would be even better with cream but I like just using milk in things, makes you feel less guilty