SHF #27 – Chocolate Orange Bread Pudding

When a few days ago I made sweet yeasted apricot rolls, more or less following a recipe from Chili & Ciabatta for pineapple bread, little did I know that I would stumble upon a recipe for “individual orange & chcolate bread puddings” at the Fine Cooking website. The rolls, already getting stale a little, seemed to be perfect for this dish, which I chose as my entry for Sugar High Friday #27, titled “Chocolate by Brand” and hosted kindly by David Lebowitz.

So, before I present the bread puddings, let’s have a look at the chocolate .-)

This is the brand of chocolate I buy usually for baking, but normally the bittersweet variety, which I will undoubtedly use when I make this dish again – I don’t care much for milk chocolate nowadays but used it because I thought (wrongly) that the original recipe asked for it.

Why this particular chocolate?

The chocolate is made from cocoa grown in Ghana and certified fair-trade chocolate – I buy it because it is not only a fair-trade product AND reasonably priced (at 1.19 Euro per 100 g) but actually tastes very good, which is partly due to the fact that it is made with pure cane sugar. And it is sold at a supermarket just around the corner.

The milk chocolate has a distinct vanilla taste which reminds me of the Christmas chocolate santas… still the lightly colored chocolate tastes very god, even at a meager 32% of cocoa, while some brands like Hachez have milk chocolates with up to 55% of cocoa.

I’d rather buy Domori or Coppeneur, but both are a tad expensive for everyday use

On to the bread pudding… I tried to capture the process step-by-step, recipe follows:

Individual Orange & Chocolate Bread Puddings

8 slices good-quality American-style white bread, about 8 oz
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened; more for the ramekins
⅓ cup orange marmalade
90 g semisweet chocolate, chopped (or 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips)
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy cream
⅓ cup sugar
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

You can assemble the bread puddings and keep them in the refrigerator up to a day ahead. Remove them from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking, let them come up to room temperature, and bake them when ready to serve.

* * *

Heat the oven to 375°F. Lightly butter four 1-1/4-cup ramekins. Remove the crusts from the bread and spread one side with the butter and marmalade. Cut the bread into quarters and arrange four quarters in the base of each ramekin, overlapping to fit. Sprinkle with half of the chocolate and repeat with the remaining bread and chocolate to make two layers.

Whisk the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl or large glass measuring cup. Pour the egg mixture over the bread. Set the ramekins on a baking sheet and bake until puffed and golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

I had some homemade bitter orange marmelade in my shelves, which did a superb job on this dessert, I wasn’t too sure about the ramekins I had, though, if they would make it in one piece through the heat (more like salad bowls) so I opted for a water bath in the oven and baked them a little longer… a great dessert or Sunday breakfast!