Chocolate Bread Pudding

Ah, bread pudding. I can remember when my flatmate first made this way back in the first year of my degree. It was one of the first things anyone had ever baked in that flat, so we were all really really excited about it, hehe. Then, when I came back this year, I found out that Babah is a *huge* fan of bread pudding. Apparently, it is usually served with custard. We never served bread pudding with custard, back in Bristol. :o

But that all has nothing to do as to why we made bread pudding. :P The actual reason was that we wanted to use up various ingredients in our house that have been around longer than they should, if you get my drift. This time, it was a can of evaporated milk (That is susu Ideal, to the Bruneians :P). I already do have a recipe for bread pudding somewhere.... ah, here it is. So when we saw this version for chocolate bread pudding.... well, need I say more? Here we go!

What you need:
6 thick slices white bread, crusts removed
450mL milk
175 mL canned evaporated milk
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 eggs
2 tablespoons dark muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
icing sugar, for dusting

Hot Fudge Sauce:
55g plain chocolate, broken into pieces
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
2 tablespoons golden syrup
5g butter or margarine
2 tablespoons dark muscovado sugar
150mL milk
1 tablespoon cornflour

What you do:

1. Grease a shallow ovenproof dish. Cut the bread into squares and layer them in the dish.
2. Put the milk, evaporated milk and cocoa powder in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is lukewarm.
3. Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together. Add the warm milk mixture and beat well.
4. Pour into the prepared dish, making sure the bread is completely covered. Cover the dish with clingfilm and chill in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
5. Bake the pudding in a preheated oven, 180 C, for about 35-40 minutes, until set. Remove the pudding from the oven and leave to stand for 5 minutes.
6. To make the sauce, put the chocolate, cocoa powder, syrup, butter or margarine, sugar, milk and cornflour into a saucepan. Heat gently, stirring constantly, until smooth.
7. Dust the pudding with icing sugar and serve at once with the hot fudge sauce.

 Well well! Just look how it turned out! Isn't it gorgeous (for a pudding)?! When fresh out of the oven, the pudding is all puffy and crisp on the outside yet soft in the middle. Add in that gorgeous chocolate fudge sauce... you've got the makings of a great pudding! As promised, everything was really really chocolatey, especially when you smother everything in that sauce, hehe.

We actually made two batches; one for the house and another one for a family event. The one at the house was finished within two days, though I do believe that it would have been sooner if the boys had been around. The one for the event was finished within 15 minutes of people discovering what it was. I think it was mainly because of the sauce, haha. We made a double helping of the sauce, for the event, but by the end, very little was left! And we thought we made too much.... there's no such thing as too much chocolate for those people, I guess!

However... I do have one bit of advice. Serve this as soon as possible. Fresh out of the oven, if you can. Once it gets cooler, the pudding sort of sinks and becomes denser and not so soft. This may equal to not so tasty, for some people. That may have been the reason why people used so much of the sauce, hehe.

Except Babah. He says the whole thing is just too chocolatey. (Like, seriously??) Haha, I guess you just can't please some people...

Quote of the day: Among life's mysteries is how a two pound box of chocolate can make a woman gain five pounds.

Cheesy Beef Nachos

As I've mentioned before, one of my brothers makes a really really good spaghetti. It has evolved somewhat over the years, but I stand by the fact that it is simply one of the tastiest spaghettis I've ever tasted. And its really easy to make too!

Anyway, the boys all love the spaghetti sauce and are always looking for different ways to use it, other than in pasta. One of their more successful inventions is this, cheesy nachos. Here we go!

What you need:
1 pack Doritos tortilla chips
1 portion beef spaghetti sauce, of your choice (for our recipe, simmer 1kg of beef mince with ready-made pasta sauce and Maggi tomato ketchup and season to taste)
Cheese, lots and lots of cheese of your choice. I like to use a mix of Cheddar and Mozzarella

What you do:
To serve, place tortilla chips onto a large plate. Spoon sauce over chips, then sprinkle grated cheese over the whole thing, Microwave for 30 seconds, or until cheese is melted. Eat immediately. You can also use the sauce as a dip for the tortilla chips.

Not sure if this counts as a recipe or not, but hey... my blog, my rules. :) And it really is tasty. One of my main weaknesses (in food) is potato chips. I am not quite a huge fan of tortilla chips, but I think it is put to good use here. This is a very decadent, very rich dish, I think. Not just keropok, but also beef and cheese in large quantities. It stands to reason that this tastes good, with so many things in there that are so unhealthy for you. ;)

If you don't like your tortilla chips to go soft under the sauce (for some reason, I do), you can always use the sauce as a dip. Spoon up the beefy sauce with the tortilla chip and eat to your heart's content. Yum!

Quote of the day: Bread and cheese is medicine for the well.