I’m not thrilled with the idea of using 15 egg yolks, because I’m really not motivated to try to find something to do with the whites, or to just throw them out. Do you think the custard will set adequately if I just use 8 whole eggs? I’m also thinking of reducing the sugar in the custard by half, since comments indicate the recipe may be too sweet and I’d rather keep the honey flavor. Would less sugar affect the pudding’s ability to set? I just don’t want to wind up with peanut butter and jelly sandwich soup.
Egg whites freeze beautifully. I just made a lovely chiffon cake, and half the whites came out of the freezer. You can put them in an ice cube tray and freeze them into little egg-white ice cubes, or freeze them in conveniently sized lots in ziplock bags. Make sure not to thaw whites in the microwave, which will cook them. You can put the cubes in a ziplock bag in warm (not hot) water for a few minutes to speed thawing if you like.
Several months from now, you can use them to make merengues or something, or you can just make omelettes with more whites than yolks. I can post several cake recipes calling for more whites than yolks, if you want them. I make my own challahs every week, and prefer to do a yolk-only egg wash, so I build up egg whites in the freezer and have to use them up every so often.
I’ve never made bread pudding and can’t speculate as to the chemistry of it.
ETA that egg whites make up a bigger volume of the egg than the yolk does, so purely on a volume basis, 15 yolks are probably equivalent to about six eggs (this is an estimate) rather than eight.
Also re: sugar content. In many desserts, the sugar acts as much more than a flavoring: it caramelizes, or melts, or adds body. You should experiment, but your final product will not be the same.
From what I understand on the reviews, the original recipe was too sweet, so my Franken-version might turn out to be an improvement. (or not, of course…)
I’ve made several other bread pudding recipes, and they all used whole eggs. I see several whole-egg based recipes on Epicurious, too. They seem to range from 6-8 eggs, and one had 4 eggs and 4 yolks. I might go with that. I could see using up 4 whites in this lifetime, but not 15.
Sometimes at restaurants I’ve gotten bread puddings with more of a separate custard layer. I’m thinking that’s what the linked recipe is going for. I don’t particularly prefer that over the kind that is more bready, though.
GilaB, since you make your own challah, bread pudding might be something fun to try if you wind up with leftovers. There are lots of bread pudding recipes that specifically call for challah.
I’m sorry, I don’t have any wisdom to add here, I just throw together some stuff on the rare occasion I make bread pudding, but I have a question. Does anyone have a good recipe for a sauce for bread pudding? Something lemonny would be lovely.
One stick of butter
1 cup of powdered sugar
1/2 cup of apple juice
1 tbs lemon juice (or to taste)
Melt the butter over medium heat and stir in the sugar. Add the apple juice a little at a time until you get the thickness you want. Add a little of the lemon juice. I’ve actually never put lemon in, but I think it will work well. Taste as you go. Or you could use orange juice instead of apple, and have an orangey sauce.
My Mom’s been off and on a bread pudding kick for a while and we’ve done a lot of playing around with the basic recipe.
Looking through our cookbooks it seemed like the general rule is one egg or two egg yolks for each cup (or was it pint , gotta go dig out our “recipe” again :mad:) of cow juice.
So 4 eggs + 4 yolks = 6 eggs sounds good to me.
That’s what happened last time we made it. Trying to get a more custardy bread pudding we used less bread and more eggy/dairy goodness. What we got was bread pudding, on top of a layer of custard.
Not exactly what we were going for.
I’m thinking I could give it a stir during the bake, but I’m not sure if there is a “stir past here and you’ll be really sorry” point, or when it is. Anybody got any suggestions?
You could try letting it sit for several hours/ overnight in the fridge before baking it. That would allow the custard mixture to absorb into the bread. I don’t think stirring is a good idea. I picture that giving you awkward custard chunks.
, gotta go dig out our “recipe” again :mad:) of cow juice.