DRIVE BY RECIPE: EASY Bread and Butter Pudding with a little caramel, aka, I was home, I was hungry

I had bread, I had eggs..  that sounds like breakfast to me  The fun of breakfast when you're faced with bread and eggs is the combination that you use.  Anyone can make toast and throw an egg on it.  Not me, not today, sweetie, not today. 

On this particular day I thought to myself, "self...I need a good old fashioned british food... some bread and butter pudding". 

DRIVE BY BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING 

(WITH CARAMEL)

I mixed up 3 of my backyard eggs, some milk, a little salt and a small palmful of sugar. I add milk till it measures about 1 3/4 cup liquid.  Mine is screaming yellow because of my chickens' yolks are that color.  They are happy birds.

Then cut up some ciabatta slices, buttered the slices, sprinkle the smallest amount of sugar on the bread, slice it into little squares and toss it all in a dish.

Pour the eggy mixture over the bread and turned the oven on to 375.

Mmmmm, eggy gooey goodness. Press the bread down so it will  soak up the yummyness. I also was sure to let some of the pointy bits stick above so they'd get crispy and crunchy.

        

While the oven heats and the bread soaks, I read a little of my book...with company, it's weird to be me sometimes

   

375 degrees and 45 minutes later !!DING!! Lookie what I found in the (toaster)oven waiting for me *joy*

I will admit, sometimes my food tries very very hard for me and this is absolutely one of those times.  LOOK!  IT's a mountain!  oh I love the puffiness when it comes out of the oven.

Pouring a little caramel sauce on while it's puffy and hot... the more in my bowl.
   

I'm pretending this is my serving serving size but we all know I'm going to eat it all... well, I'm sharing a bit with teenageson but then, the rest is all me.

I poured a river of thick and sticky warm caramel down over for it to settle into the hills and valleys of my breakfast. It's warm and crisp and soft and thick and sticky and sweet and salty. As good as you think it is - it's better.  I officially don't care what happens for the rest of the day.

DRIVE BY CARAMEL SAUCE

There are no measurements here because this is a process not a recipe, quantity doesn't matter here, it's how you do what you do.

Put some sugar, maybe 3/4 cup? in a saucepan, I put a couple of tablespoons of water to moisten it and get it started and put it on high heat.  
NO stirring, swirling is fine. 
Swirl until it's the color you like then let it go one more second, take it off heat and pour in heavy cream until it's the color you like.  It WILL boil up so use a BIGGER pan than the size you think you need.  
Boil a minute or so then add more cream if it needs it, add a little salt and a little vanilla. 

There you go, it'll thicken a bit when it sits.  I like it pourable when it's cold so I added a little extra cream, oh yes I did.

Oh look at my lovely!

 

There you have it, breakfast :D  

/enjoy

NEW Single White Loaf , Farmhouse style

Recipe below, play by play pictures coming... in the mean time, look at what came out of my oven:





To get an idea of the scale...



Oh and I didn't make it in a loaf pan! I made it in a restaurant steamer pan!!!!! OH YES I DID! I couldn't get a pan with the dimensions I wanted in the USA, the shipping for a "Farmhouse" loaf pan from the UK was going to be twice the cost of the pan and that just bugged me. SO, when I was at the restaurant supply store moaning about their lack of high sided loaf pans, I had a total epiphany!!

HEY, I said, I LOVE LOVE the steamer pans for roasting vegetables and chickens I bought there. It cooks perfectly evenly, is stainless steel and nothing, absolutely nothing, sticks to it. I thought, HEY, why not see if they have a size that I could use for white bread and they DID!

It's a 1/4 size I think, it's 4 inches deep(!) and 8 inches long and about 4 inches wide. EXACTLY what I wanted. I'm going back to buy more so I no longer have to play wait for the pan I love the best and can retire the old rusted nasty pan I usually make my loaves in. This is...perfection.



OK, here's the recipe, it's so very easy and so much more delicious than any white bread I've ever made before. I have tested this many times and had testers try it... it's a good one ;)

TRACY'S ENGLISH STYLE FARMHOUSE WHITE LOAF
*You CAN make this by hand, I use the Kitchen aid, just use a spoon until it's too hard to work then knead until a smooth dough, no Kitchen aid is no excuse not to make this!*

4 cups (450 grams) all purpose flour
2 Tablespoons cold butter *unsalted
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
300 ml room temperature liquid *I do 200 ml warm water + 100 ml 2% milk

METHOD:

IN the bowl of a Kitchen aid with a dough hook, combine the flour and butter.  RUB the butter into the flour like you are making biscuits or pastry. You don't want any chunks of butter, this must be totally combined. 

ADD the yeast, salt, sugar and MIX around with your hands.

ADD liquid all at once.

COMBINE on slow speed until combined, it should completely clear the sides of the bowl. Then turn on high and knead for 4 minutes to make the dough a smooth, soft, dough.

Butter the dough lightly and put in a box/bowl with a lid (or a bowl with cling film) and leave to double. *mine takes 45 minutes.

Gently transfer dough to a lightly floured board and flatten with fingertips. Roll into a loaf shape and put into a lightly buttered/sprayed pan. Leave to double. *mine takes about 45 minutes.

Bake at 450, for 30 minutes.  I turn it a couple of times during cooking.  I don't spray the oven, loaf or put ice in with this bread.  If it's getting too brown, put a piece of tinfoil over the loaf. 

Leave to cool on a rack, removed from the pan, until completely cool before you slice this. It's soft and sweet and the crust is just hard enough to hold it but soft enough to yield. Yeah, you're going to LOVE this, I want to see pictures of your bread!! 

Let me know how much you love this bread.

**I like a TALL loaf and have been using a steam table insert pan, stainless steel, that measures 8x4x4 inches. Previous to my ephiphany, I used a standard loaf pan. This also makes ridiculously good little rolls**

Alrighty now, go make it.

/tracy