Holiday Bread Pudding with Cranberries, Orange and White Chocolate

Bill has been searching for ways to improve his food cost at the restaurant (calculated as a percentage of sales). Each day a large box of the bread ends and stales ends up with a pig farmer. They use a very expensive and delicious french style baguette. and in addition doing things like bread salad and crostini a bread pudding seemed a good place to start. Bill called from work one afternoon to ask for my bread pudding recipe. My bread pudding recipe is based on one served at Commander's Palace in New Orleans. I've used it for years and it is easy and delicious. When Bill asks for a recipe, he is looking for guidelines only, he usually glances at the ingredients, ratios (egg:milk:sugar in this case) and picture and then he starts creating on his own. Wednesday night I stopped by Bill's restaurant to say hello and try the finished product. Bill's holiday twist on bread pudding has dried cranberries, orange zest and a little bit of orange juice. It was brilliant…..but…..what if it had a little less sugar and some chunks of white chocolate floating around with the cranberries and orange zest? Not to be outdone I stopped by the store on the way home and picked up heavy cream and cranberries.

White Chocolate, Cranberry and Orange Bread Pudding

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter
5 Eggs
2 1/4 Cups of Heavy Cream
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 small pinches of nutmeg
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1 4.4 oz bar of Good Quality White Chocolate, coarsely chopped
zest of one orange (be sure not to get the bitter white part - you only want the orange outer skin)
1/4 cup fresh orange juice from the orange
French bread - one large or two small cut into 1/2 - 3/4" cubes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.   First soften the cranberries by pouring boiling water over them and allowing them to sit while you work on the rest of the dish.  Grease a 9 X 9 baking dish or pan.  In a standing mixer cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time and mixing thoroughly.  Add in orange juice, orange zest, vanilla, heavy cream, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Mix well.  Drain your cranberries and allow to sit on a paper towel to get the excess moisture off.  The easiest way to measure your bread cubes is to fill your pan with them as you chop.  Now mix your bread into the bowl of egg-cream.  Allow to sit a few minutes and then turn them over until they are well soaked.  The more soaked your bread is the better the final product! Stir in the chopped chocolate and cranberries and pour into your baking dish. Flatten out the bread so that only a little bit is sticking out of the cream mixture.

You are going to cook this in a water bath.  Do this by finding a pan slightly larger than your baking dish.  Set the pan with the bread pudding inside the larger pan.  Pour about a 1/2 - 3/4" of boiling water into the outside pan. Don't overfill because you don't want the water to slosh into your pudding when you move the pans into the oven.  Cover the whole thing with foil (you do want the steam to stay in).  Bake for 30 minute.  Remove the foil and bake for 10 minutes longer until the top is golden brown but the pudding is still soft.

Serve warm with a hard sauce spooned over the top.  Hard sauce is combination of cream, sugar (equal parts - 1 cup) with a pinch of cinnamon, some butter (1 tablespoon) and a little orange liquor (1 tablespoon).  Heat everything to a boil (except the liquor and butter).  Add the liquor and butter at the end after removing from heat.