When I made baked artichoke dip recently, I scooped it up with a terrific walnut sourdough baguette. Then we went away for the weekend and the leftovers went very, very stale. I was determined to revive them and thought a bread pudding might be the solution - it proved to be a good one, since I was also able to add some past-their-best apricots and too-dry dried cherries.The only other ingredient required is some custard to soften it all up. Though I prefer the taste of an egg-based custard, one made with custard powder is more pantry-friendly (and is easily veganised). The custard's flavour didn't dominate but it did the perfect job of restoring some tasty but unchewable ingredients.
Apricot and walnut bread pudding
1 1/2 cups walnut sourdough bread, cubed
1/4 cup dried cherries
1 tablespoon custard powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup milk
10 small apricots, chopped
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
In a small saucepan, stir together the custard powder and sugar, adding a little milk to form a paste. Whisk in the remaining milk and bring the custard to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the custard for about 2 minutes.
Mix together the dried cherries and bread cubes in a casserole dish, then stir through the custard. Stir through the apricots.
Bake the pudding, covered for 15 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for a further 5-10 minutes, until the top is dry and golden.
excellent way to save the bread - just my sort of dessert. Apricots from the shops seem either too tart or too ripe - it is hard to catch them at their best!
ReplyDeleteThanks Johanna - I am terrible at picking fruit, and at eating it when it's at its peak. :-)
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