Bread And Butter Pudding? Not Again!

Yes, again. One of the simplest puddings in the world. Not Banting style, for sure. But this is a dessert after all.

The idea for this dessert came up recently with small cold fronts reminding us that the summer is over and that it is time for some hearty winter fare again.

This one started, as usual, with an internet search. I was certainly not going the traditional way of using slices of bread, buttered and some apricot jam spread over, all squashed in a suitable dish, egg batter added and baked.

The internet search revealed a myriad of recipes. After surfing this mass of information for about five minutes I was salivating all over the keyboard! Never did I think that this humble dessert would attract so much attention. The ingredients vary from simple to intricate and exotic. Fillings vary from jam through dried fruit and frozen fruit to fresh fruit and nuts. There are some versions that resemble more of a main dish than a dessert, using some meaty filling.

Mine was going to be a dessert, simply made, but with some deviation from the very staid traditions.

Some versions use baking powder to get some fluffiness into the dish. I opted for going the traditional way to keep it simple and away from all kinds of chemicals. The bread itself is sufficiently refined. Speaking of the bread, most recipes call for stale bread. One blogger stated firmly that there is no such thing as stale bread, just another opportunity to creatively use bread with character. I agree with him. And did you know that you cannot make a decent hamburger using fresh bread? The crumb is simply too soft. You have to let the bread mature for at least a day before it will be firm enough to make a hamburger.

Mash the blueberries

So here I am in this creative mood, salivating already just from the thought of a deliciously warm and hearty dessert.

Use butter liberally

My design instincts told me that the pudding needs to be as light as possible. I was slightly snookered here, as I did not have three day old bread and had to buy a fresh loaf. I scoured the fruit shelves of my local vendors, but no obvious fruit came into view. In the end I opted for some blueberries. These may be found year round on supermarket shelves nowadays. I also had dried fruit in the form of fruit cake mix. My packet of cake mix is quite old and the fruit had crystallized. This would be useful as well. And then I topped the list of ingredients off with real vanilla from pods I bought in Madagascar while on my last ocean voyage.


The saucy part of the dish needs sufficient egg to bind the lot. Some recipes use about one egg for every two slices of bread. This seems a bit over the top and I settled for three eggs for the eight slices of bread I used. For the milk I used a mix of fresh cream and milk, mixing this into the stirred eggs and adding in the vanilla seeds from one pod.

The blueberries were mashed in a mortar and pestle. I use one from le Creuset as it has the right size for my needs. Save some of the blueberries for garnish.


This recipe is sufficient for about six servings. I used a small stoneware dish, also from le Creuset, for the baking. The dish comfortably holds eight slices of bread.  Bear in mind that the dish does rise a bit during baking, so use your common sense in the choice of dish for the baking.

Cut into small triangles

So here goes.

Ingredients

8 slices stale bread
3 large eggs
100 ml fresh cream for the sauce
200 ml fresh full cream milk
butter for the bread
150 g fresh blueberries. This is about a cupful
3 dessert spoons dried fruitcake mix
1 pod vanilla or one teaspoon vanilla essence

Build the pudding in layers. Add garnish.

Process

Spread the butter liberally on each slice of bread. Arrange the slices in the dish, butter side down. Add a dash or two of blueberry mush on each layer  of bread, along with some of the dried fruit. The last layer of bread may be arranged in some artistic way to enhance the appearance of your dessert before serving.

Add the egg batter

Mix 100 ml of the fresh cream with the milk. Add in the seed from one vanilla pod or use a teaspoon of vanilla essence. Pour this lot over the bread. Do it slowly to allow the bread to soak up the fluid.


Now pop this into the oven at 175°C/350°F for twenty minutes. Then turn the oven up to 200°C/400°F for another ten minutes. This will bake the top of the dessert to a nice brown caramel state. I then switched off the oven, leaving the dish inside to sweat a little before I removed it to cool down. Remember. The dish may very well be soggy after the baking. You need to allow the boiling juices inside to finish boiling and for the steam to evaporate. The dish will then solidify and the consistency would be that of a juicy cake.

Serve this up with a dash of the remaining cream and enjoy. This one came out much better that I expected, with the blueberry juices nicely dispersed by the cooking.


And remember, above all, use real butter.

Bon appetit!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2015-03-20

Not Your Traditional Rice Pudding

  

Rice pudding? Yea, right. Not necessarily a favourite dessert. But with a little foresight and planning, something completely different emerges.

And therein lies the rub.

After some recent experimentation with sourdough mixes and fermentation, I came across a flat bread made with rice. Palappam, made with rice and coconut milk is quite well known in Asia. The  standard dish is made in the form of a pancake, which is delicious. It is also quite easy to make and being gluten free, a new way of adding a starch to a stewed dish. Especially spicy dishes.

After discussing this with some friends on a Banting diet, they decided to try this newfangled dish. So off they went to do the shopping and not long thereafter created the opportunity for this culinary venture. Needless to say, the feedback was filled with ecstasy.

Part of the reason for this was that they experimented with the leftover pancakes. They had them with a bit of sugar, lemon juice and some lemon zest. And voila!, a new dessert was born.

After some more discussions with  a chef friend of mine, The idea of a baked version came out. In a muffin size it would make a heavenly dessert, served with some fruity compote and cream.

So here goes my latest dabbing into the world of baked desserts.

Not your traditional South African style rice pudding.

I made several versions. You may also use some desiccated coconut to get a bit of crunchy texture. Whatever the method, you will get a toasted coconut flavour in the dish. No use in adding flavour to the rice pudding, as the sauce and coconut will overpower the other flavours. This version has some flour to help with structure. It is quite tricky to get the cakes to set properly during baking. This version will give some body to the pudding as well as some gluten.

Small muffin pans will make bite sized ones for a children's party.

Ingredients

For the rice muffins

This will make eight muffin sized portions.

1 cup cooked rice
½ cup cake flour
½ teaspoon baking powder. You may omit this if you use self raising flour instead.
½ cup coconut cream or -milk
1 medium to large egg
¼ teaspoon salt
2 dessert spoons sugar. I used brown sugar.
1 dessert spoon butter

For the compote

2-3 dessert spoons fresh blueberries
3 dessert spoons brown sugar
2 dessert spoons butter
3 dessert spoons water
sprig of mint for garnish
whipped cream

Process

For the rice muffins

Mix the ingredients thoroughly, then blitz the mix in the blender. This will cut the rice into very small bits. The mix should have the consistency of cake mix. Add more coconut milk as required.

Lubricate your favourite muffin pan and pour a little batter into each section. This while your oven is heating up to 200ｺC/390ｺF. The rice needs a slightly hotter oven. I had to experiment a bit. Not all ovens have the same heat distribution.

Pop the pan in the oven for 30 minutes or until the puddings are baked through. Test with a steel pin to see if they are done. The steel pin will come out dry when they are done.

By this time they will have a nice light brown to tan colour. Put then out to cool while you make the compote.

Compote

Mash half of the blueberries and keep to one side.

Dissolve the sugar in the water, then add the butter and bring to the boil. Keep stirring, you don't want this lot to burn. This will caramelise the sugar. The mix will foam for a while, but don't despair, this is what happens. The water will give a consistent texture and colour to the caramel. When the caramel is nice an light brown, add the mashed blueberries and stir through thoroughly. Wait until the foaming and frothing has stopped, then remove the compote from the heat and add the rest of the blueberries.

Allow this to cool. Properly cool. This mix has a substantially higher temperature than boiling water and will give you second degree burns. Wait until it has cooled sufficiently before using it.

Dishing up is a matter of arranging a muffin on a plate, add a dollop of whipped cream and some of the compote. Garnish with a sprig of mint and there you go.

A delicious new way of having leftover rice as a pudding.


I  am sorry about your Banting diet...

Bon appetit!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-11-03

Flavours of South African Dessert: Buttered Dumplings

Yes, another very high GI dish of note. Deliciously sinful.

This one from a cook book that we recently unearthed from our stash of packing cases after our relocation. Some packing cases just defy unpacking.

This cook book was first published in 1977, with my copy being part of the fourth print in 1988. Spys en Drank, Die oorsprong van die Afrikaanse eetkultuur, by Renata Coetzee, published by Struik Uitgewers in Cape Town.

A book about the origins of the South African culinary culture. Complete with 167 authentic South African recipes. A wonderful source of information on traditional dishes.

Given the blustery cold weather here in Cape Town, I turned to page 113 for the recipe on “Souskluitjies.” Buttered dumplings with cinnamon sugar. A very traditional South African dessert.

The recipe is almost a no-brainer, but delicious and rich. Only seven ingredients. How difficult can it be. The original recipe does not call for any spices other than the cinnamon, but it works a lot better with a touch of vanilla.

I had a double yolk egg. Nice and fresh.

The traditional recipe also calls for normal flour plus baking powder. This puts the origin of the recipe post the introduction of baking powder in the Cape Colony, probably around the late 1890's. This then puts the origins of my recipe probably into the early twentieth century. I would welcome some feedback on this, my info is sketchy.

I grew up having this as a special treat on a Sunday. The best version was made by my late aunt, swimming in butter and using fresh eggs that have not been in cold storage. You get a nice yellow colour. I was lucky and recently received a present of such eggs, some with double yolks.

I used self raising flour. A modern short-cut if you please. Makes it even easier to prepare this dish. And you have to use butter, real butter. Not margarine or any other substitute, it just does not work. You get an ersatz flavour. Been there, done that...


This recipe is enough for 4-6 midget sized dieters. Scale as required for normal sailing or other outdoorsy types of hungry people. Especially when it is cold outside. This dish will go well as dessert after a stewed or baked meat dish.

Ingredients for the original recipe

1 cup  flour (120g)
10 ml (2 teaspoons) baking powder
1 ml salt (¼ teaspoon)
12.5g (1 dessert spoon) butter
1 egg
125 ml (½ cup) milk
Cinnamon sugar
extra butter for the sauce

1 teaspoon vanilla essence. This is my variation.

Process

Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly. Rub the butter into the flour mix. Mix the milk and egg. Add Add the dry mix to the milk and egg, stirring to ensure a proper batter mix. Add the vanilla essence here if you want to. The batter should be on the thick side, more like thick syrup rather than a flapjack mix.

Fill a wide saucepan to about and inch (25mm) with water. Add a pinch of salt. Bring this to the boil. Now scoop teaspoons full of the thick batter into the boiling water. Make sure than the dumplings don't touch. Turn the dumplings over to cook on both sides. Cook till done, then scoop out with a slotted spoon into a suitable dish. Fill the dish with a layer of dumplings, dot liberally with butter and a layer of cinnamon sugar, then add the next layer.

The water remaining in the saucepan should be nice and thick with leftover bits of the batter. Thicken this by mashing some of the bits, add some butter and sugar. Add a little water if required. Bring this to the boil and pour over the dumplings.

Voila, real traditional 'souskluitjies'!

Serve hot.



Authored by Johan Zietsman.

Last updated on 2013-06-21

Peaches in brandy: The Ultimate After Braai Dessert

I recently received an email warning the reader on the vagaries of being invited to a typical South African braai. The gist of this email was to warn the reader of the copious amounts of meat that is consumed at such an event, washed down with equal amounts of beer.

I wondered what the other readers would think of this. Then I thought, hey, I am not really a brandy drinker, but the stuff we get over here is not bad at all. And I would like to have some anyway. So I paged through some old recipe books and let my mind wonder while sipping a dram of the golden juice.

The idea is as follows: You get to eat copious amounts of meat, washed down with beer. So you can have fresh fruit, washed down with brandy, as a dessert. That will surely not tarnish your reputation around the braai fire, methinks.

Then I went to work. There is only the missus and I here, so I made enough for three helpings.  I booked a second helping for myself. A present from Dad to Dad, you know.

Slice two yellow cling peaches into thin slices after peeling them. Chew or suck off the remaining flesh, it does taste nice and you will not soon taste it like that again. Throw away the stone. 

Place the peach slices in a shallow dish and sprinkle liberally with brown sugar, then add half a cup of brandy. Put this lot in the refrigerator for half an hour or so to rest and develop flavour.

You just have to have a sauce with this, so I made a blueberry caramel sauce. Blueberry caramel compote, if you want to be fancy. Start with a teaspoon of butter, three quarters cup of brown  sugar and half cup of water. Add a small pinch of salt. Bring to the boil and wait until it starts to foam, then watch and stir regularly. While waiting for the caramel to form, mash two dessert spoons of fresh blueberries in a mortar and pestle. These need to be reasonably finely mashed. Add this mash to the caramel and mix through. The caramel will thicken and turn a dark blue. When it is thick enough to your taste, add another two dessert spoons of whole blueberries to the sauce, cook for another minute or two, then take the heat off.

The peaches are now dished up in ramekins, along with some of the brandy and sugar syrup. Add the blueberry caramel compote and garnish with a dollop of fresh cream. Wait for the blueberry compote to cool down, it is substantially hotter than boiling water.

Voila! Something sweet for the manne after the braai, complete with the requisite amount of brandy!

Lekker eet!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-01-22