CW Florida Quarantine Cookbook

Heidi Peckhaus | Miami Rum Bread Pudding with Drunk Pears

Prep Time: 30 Min. | Bake Time: 30-45 Min. | Makes 8-10 servings

Ingredients

Cream Sauce 2 vanilla beans, split lengthwise 2 cups heavy cream (or you can substitute regular milk) 6 large egg yolks (room temperature) ½ cup sugar (either brown sugar or regular white sugar will work)

First thing to do is dice the pears and add rum and let these two marry each other for as long as you can. Secondly, beat the eggs, add sugars, milk, rum and spices. Add your torn bread to a baking casserole dish and begin to create this simple masterpiece! Add pears to the mix and pour over the bread pressing down to insure you have saturated all the bread. If you can let this sit and marinate for at least an hour before cooking it will be a lot better, trust me. Final step is to add slices of unsalted butter on top and cook in a 350-degree oven (uncovered) for 35-45 minutes. I like to add some powder sugar on top and the crème anglaise is the key, but optional. Recipe for the sauce is below or you can refer to the Floating Island recipe as well. You can also add pecans or another favorite nut – if you are a nut person, raisins work as well. 4 cups of torn bread – I prefer to use brioche as it is rich with flavor or as we did in New Orleans, use the older bread or remaining French bread (gluten free works too!) Rum – the darker the better; Ritual Cubano Rum Freshly diced pears, I prefer the bosc pear Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Vanilla Extract (about a teaspoon size will do on the extract) 3 organic brown eggs 3/4 cup brown sugar ½ cup white sugar 1 ½ cups of white milk or you can even use soy or almond milk ½ cup rum (I added more!) Unsalted butter Preparation

For the sauce. Add the sugar to the egg yolk and stir and set aside. Combine the split vanilla beans and cream, or milk, into saucepan on medium/medium-high, stirring to make sure you don’t burn the bottom. Bring the milk to a simmer, remove and whisk slowly into the mixing bowl with the eggs and sugar. You must whisk as you pour in order to get a smooth base. Once you have this step done use a spatula to get the mixture out of the bowl and back into the saucepan. Then use the spatula to stir the cream sauce over medium heat until it appears thick and leaves a path on the back of a spoon, or somewhat thicker on the back of the spatula. This should take approximately 8 to 9 minutes. Stirring continuously is the key here keeping the heat medium or a little under. When finished with this step pour into a small bowl and cover and chill until cold.