Irish Cream Bread Pudding with Guinness caramel.

This was a really good dessert for our recent St. Patrick's day dinner.

Irish Cream Bread Pudding.

1 loaf bread (I used challah)

1 cup Irish Cream liquor
1/2 cup raisins

1 cup whole milk

2 tablespoons butter, softened

4 large eggs
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 pinch salt

Cut about 1/2 to 3/4 of the bread in to 1" cubes, you want enough to fill the loaf pan you'll be using.  Dry in a 170F oven for a few hours or let sit out overnight.

Add the raising to the Irish cream liquor and allow to sit overnight.

Preheat the oven to 300F.

Grease a loaf pan with the 2 tablespoons of butter.  Prepare a water bath for the load pan.

Bring the milk to a simmer.

Beat the eggs with the sugars, vanilla, nutmeg and salt, slowly whisk in the hot milk.  Add the Irish cream and raisins and mix in.  Pour the custard mix over the dry bread cubes and gently mix until adsorbed.  Press the soaked bread mixture in to the buttered loaf pan.  Bake the bread pudding in a water bath for 50-60 minutes.  Can be served warm or cold.

Guinness Caramel.

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Juice of 1/2 lime (or lemon)
1 pinch salt
1/2 - 3/4 cup Guinness draught (allow to go flat or be prepared to deal with boil-over)
2 tablespoons butter

Add the sugar, salt, lime (or lemon) juice and water to a saucepan and cook over medium flame until the sugar has caramelized.  Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.  Slowly whisk in the Guinness, there will be a lot of steam and sputtering so be careful.  Once the bubbling has died down whisk in the butter.  The caramel will thicken as it cools, if it is too thick heat it us and add more beer (or cream if you prefer).

Lemon Basil Creme Brulee

I have an Aerogarden, it was given to me as a gift several years ago.  For the most part it has worked out pretty well, although I've had to replace the pump twice and the rear arm once (the metal tabs that send power to the pump corroded away).  Even with the occasional replacement parts needed the garden has been worth it, I usually have more herbs than I can use.  Such is the case with the latest herb kit I ordered, the "Gourmet Herb Seed Kit".  One of the herbs included in the kit, lemon basil, is one that I haven't had much experience with and is growing like gangbusters.  So fast that it will shade out the rest of the herbs if I don't keep it trimmed down.  That means I have a LOT of lemon basil to find a use for.  I had considered using it in several savory applications, but for the Fourth of July menu I was in need of a dessert.  The thing I eventually came up with was a lemon basil creme brulee.

The custard in a creme brulee is your basic creme anglaise, a stirred custard that is often used as a pourable sauce or as the base of french style ice creams.  The recipe I used is...

16 oz heavy cream
1 cup lemon basil
1 tsp fresh lemon zest
pinch salt
1/4 tsp vanilla
5 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar

 First, the basil was cleaned, dried, cut in to strips (chiffonade) and put in a saucepan with the cream and lemon zest.  After being heated to a simmer I used a stick blender to puree the basil in the cream.  Meanwhile, the egg yolks and sugar were whisked together.  The hot cream mixture was tempered in to the yolks and the mixture returned to the sauce pan, then put over a medium low flame.  The custard was stirred constantly with a wooden spoon until it began to thicken, then it was poured through a fine mesh strained in to a quart sized liquid measuring cup.  Some of the basil caught in the strained was forced through using the back of the wooden spoon just because I like having a few specks in the custard.  The custard was poured in to ramekins and cooked in a water bath at 300 degrees (convection) until they just began to set (the center still jiggles).  The custards were removed from the water bath and allowed to cool for 30 minutes before being placed in the refrigerator to cool completely.

Our Fourth of July dinner consisted of porterhouse steaks cooking in my favorite sous-vide method (135 degrees for 2 hours straight from the freezer then cooled, unbagged and seared over a screaming hot charcoal fire on the grill), grilled corn on the cob and roasted beets.  This was my first use of my Mangrate which I heard about on The Morning Stream podcast, ordered and received a few weeks ago  It seemed to work pretty well.

After dinner was over, the custards were removed from the fridge and sprinkled with sugar.  I used a plumbers torch to brulee the sugar on top of the custard.  We then garnished with mint sprigs and a few blueberries. 

 This dessert turned out fantastic, the light green custard had a wonderful lemon flavor with just just a hint of vanilla.  The flavors melded beautifully with the caramelized sugar and blueberries on top.  Definitely one I'll remember and make again.