Recipe 3- The BEST true comfort food

Recipe 3- True Comfort Food 

Banana Rum Bread Pudding

So a lot of confusion swirled around this recipe with some friends and family. None of us are familiar with 'bread pudding'. This would be the first time any of us had eaten it.

My kids were VERY confused, they didn't think it was a dessert...

Until they smelled it baking later in the oven. 

I picked this recipe, because as you can see in the above pic, I had some VERY ripe bananas that needed to be used up. This recipe calls for 4, but I thought I would wing it with 2.

Before I could even start this recipe, I had to send my loving husband out to buy some rum.

His first question was 'rum  for a dessert? ok!"

It states in the recipe it can be 'any kind', so I figured my husband could surprise me.

To begin, I started this recipe backwards.. I could not wait another second to make some of that lovely whip cream this recipe includes! 

I just happened to have a cup of hot chocolate on the go, and who can resist some freshly made whip cream to top it off?

I pretty much could of stopped here with my hot chocolate and whip cream because it was so tasty, but that bread pudding HAD to be made.

The ingredients for the whip cream were simple for this, but the flavour is just amazing! 

Look how great that whip cream whipped up! 

Perfect texture and just a slight bit of sweetness with a little added sugar.

And this only took 5 minutes in my mixer.

The recipe calls for 'sugar',  I added in brown sugar as I have seen Chef Michael use before, it was great! 

Now the 'secret' ingredient is some freshly grated nutmeg. 

This adds a whole new level to plain whip cream. It makes it so decadent and really pairs well with the bread pudding.

I have never used 'freshly' ground nutmeg before. The fragrance it releases when its grated is just nothing I can explain, you have to try it yourself! 

And how cool is the nutmeg on the inside?

Okay, let move on to the star of the show, the bread pudding! 

As always I got all of the my ingredients out and ready to go.

I used a day old french loaf for this recipe. 

To begin I chopped my loaf into cubes and set them aside.

Next, the recipe says to beat your eggs and add the milk, cream, rum, sugar and vanilla.

Here is where my FIRST fail of this journey happened. 

I was trying to take pictures as I went along... AND.... INTO THE EGGS GOES MY BRAND NEW IPHONE 5! 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! OMG! OH MY... I CAN'T BREATHE! 

And for an added ingredient, next up.. Iphone5 into the eggs! 

Okay, lets calm down... I had a case on it, thank heavens! It only got a little egg on the screen! 

But STILL! I have now learned my lesson.

Moving along... I next add in my very ripe bananas and take out my above frustration with my whisk. Mashing the heck out of those bananas into the custard mixture.

By this time, I was back to a relaxed state and now its time for the bread to take a bath.

In goes my bread cubes and they hang out in the mixture until everything is soaked in nicely. 

After all the juice is soaked up, into a greased baking dish they go!

First thing I did after everything hit the baking dish... take a big sniff! 

It smelled amazing ALREADY!

Now this is not part of the recipe, I added a little touch of my own.

Since I had never eaten bread pudding, I was assuming with the amount of liquid the bread just soaked up, that it would be quite a soft texture.

I thought a slightly 'crunchy' topping would really compliment this.

In a bowl I mixed some raw sugar, cinnamon and some nutmeg.

I sprinkled this on the top, for a  crunchy cinnamon sugar topping.

And off to the oven we go.

The smell of this baking was such a comforting smell. The cinnamon and sugar, along with the bananas.. it smelled like a loaf of banana bread baking.

4o minutes later the bread pudding was perfectly baked and ready to come out of the oven.

Honestly, I couldn't wait for this to cool off before we dug in.

And here is the completed bread pudding with the delicious whip cream! 

After the first bite I restrained myself to take it all in and not gobble my plate.

This  truly is comfort food at its finest.

So warm and comforting.

Before I knew it my plate was empty and my kids were asking for seconds.

For some extra goodness, a fresh coffee pairs VERY well with this.

This was a hit in our house and hopefully you will be inspired to try this too! 

So your probably wondering.. so what happened with that extra rum?

Well.. I did drop a new iphone5 into eggs, so I will leave that one to your imagination! 

haha! 

Until next time, my compliments to the Chef, and cheers to all of you, my friends! 

Enjoy!