Blueberry Muffin Bread Pudding

 Or, on the joys of internet dating. And getting burned. Literally and figuratively.

Also known as: I hope my mother isn’t reading this.

Dear gentlemen who like to meet women on-line:

1.  Professing extreme distaste for my choice of job is not a good way to make a first impression. First, it makes me think you’re an idiot. Second, it is offensive. Third, I don’t gasp in horror when you say you sit in a cubicle all day and at least my job involves social interaction.
2. Are you really laid back and relaxed? Easy-going? Well, I’m sorry to break this to you but I’m not. I have probably been relaxed for roughly 30 seconds in the last ten years. Just a heads up in case your idea of a good time is sitting on the couch staring at the wall.
3. Can you read? Are you sure? Then maybe you should find out if I am actually interested in dating someone who was 18 when I was five. Gross. Seriously.
4.  If you don’t find anything funny, we are not going to get along.
5. If you care deeply about the length, color, or styling of my hair, I should warn you that this is an argument that you are going to lose. I may show up on our next date with neon pink spiky hair just to find out how you react. Childish? Sure, but it’s my hair, so calm down.

Sincerely,

            The nice young lady who is afraid of sea monsters and likes to run marathons.

Perhaps I’m not cut out for this activity. I find it kind of creepy. And I refuse to post pictures of myself at the beach. And frankly, after reading 500 profiles of people who are all laid-back, easy-going, and relaxed, I start to feel like a horrible, uptight person. Except that I frankly think life is way more entertaining when you get excited about things. Or most things. Okay, fine, everything.

Maybe I would get better results if I just wrote an ode to something. Like the Phillies? Or food? Or fire? Or would I sound like a pyro? Let’s give it a shot. . .

Have I ever mentioned that I love fire? And burning stuff? And hot things? Bending glass is so cool. Solid-state phase changes in ceramic pots are amazing (and toxic, fyi). I only wish my aim was a little better. My left arm has it’s own private version of the geologic record, except instead of layered rocks it’s layered burns. I thought the one I got from that bread-baking episode three years was bad, but then I splattered oil on myself, directly on top of the old burn. I get asked at least once a week why I have such a ridiculous looking bruise on my arm. People are only mildly horrified to discover that it’s slightly more permanent than a bruise.

Usually, though, I try to play along with the instructions in the recipes and take things out of the oven before they become a flour-based version of my arm.

Which is why this outcome was sad:

(I’m going to avoid self-righteous ranting here about how I “never burn anything” and “it must because my new oven sucks”. Let’s be completely honest for a hot second: I’m horribly absent-minded, and even the 9 small minutes it takes for some cookies to bake is pushing my attention span. It’s truly miraculous that this particular fiasco is the exception and not the rule).

I could only make my way through half of one of these before I got really depressed and left them in a bag in my refrigerator for a week. There was a lot of internal angst about what to do: eat them, and be digestively horrified? Give them to friends and apologize for burning them? Throw them out and suffer the guilt of wasting food, the cardinal sin in the waste-not-want-not household of my upbringing?

I don’t know what prompted heading in the bread pudding direction (and I will say that googling “muffin bread pudding” to see if this was a horrible idea was not terribly successful. Turns out, making bread pudding in muffin shape is more popular than using your failed muffins as the base of bread pudding). However, I decided that there were several points in favor: first, I could cut off the burned parts and still have relatively tasty muffins. Second, I would be able to finish off a couple things in my fridge (always a challenge when living the single life, frankly). And finally, I could reconstitute those dry, week-old muffins into something moist, spongy, and rich.

As my friend Caitlin said, this recipe is kind of like cheating, because you start with something delicious, and then you turn it into bread pudding. I mean, seriously people. Seriously. (To quote Caitlin).

And in case you are desperate for more details about my personal life, I will just let you in on a little secret: I have cried every day for the past week, and most of those occasions were in public. I really wish I could stop doing that. That is my justification for the addition of rum. Whatever. It tasted awesome.

Another baking disclaimer: I was pretty irresponsible about proportions. I found a recipe, scaled down, and added my own fun stuff based on what I had. I honestly don’t think you can really mess this up too badly as long as you’re in the ball-park.

Blueberry muffin bread pudding

6+ cups cubed blueberry muffins (if you burned them, cut off the burnt parts. Duh. 1 or 1.5 inch cubes work nicely)

3 cups milk+cream (I just blended all the milk products in my fridge. A lot of recipes argue that more fat is better, but I think it’s personal choice.)

3 eggs

½ stick of unsalted butter, melted and cooled (you can use less.)

¼ cup sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 teaspoon of cinnamon (or to taste)

Extra fun stuff I added (which is totally optional, and can certainly be varied):

Toasted walnuts (nice texture)

Cubed apples (they were languishing in my kitchen)

A couple tablespoons of rum (add to custard mixture). (Special note to Katie: I used the Flor de Caña, because that’s what I had)

Vague instructions:

1. Butter a pan. I used an 8x8 glass Pyrex pan. Exactly the right size for the quantities listed above.
2.  Spread bread cubes around. It should come up pretty much up to and over the top of the pan when loosely spread.
3. Mix together the custard mixture. Try not to cook the eggs with hot butter. Disaster. I’m serious about the melted AND cooled part. Perhaps I should put “melt butter and let it cool” for instruction #1. Or maybe we can treat this like one of those ridiculous tests that is designed to see if you actually read all of the instructions before getting started.
4. Add the garnish elements (fruit, nuts, other fun things) to the bread cubes.
5. Pour the custard mixture over the bread cubes, trying to hit most of the top cubes.
6. I let this sit in my fridge, covered, for an entire day because I got too tired on the night I was making it. Typical. But that worked great, because then all of the muffin pieces got nice and soaked through with the custard mixture. You could also limit yourself to an hour or just overnight (hot bread pudding for breakfast? Oh my god can I come to your house for the weekend?).
7.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. (I will tell you, if you do a Google search, you could probably make a bar graph of the distribution of temperatures suggested between 300 and 400. Maybe I’ll do that next time I get bored). You can let the cold bread-custard mixture sit out during the preheat. Cook for 35-45 minutes, until top bread pieces and bottom of custard are golden brown. Don’t overdo it. Or burn it. Because I have no idea what you do with burned bread pudding.

I’m fairly sure you can actually make bread pudding with just about any bread-related product. I’m also fairly sure that’s how fancy restaurants make bread pudding seem like gourmet food.

p.s. As I am posting this, I am listening to the world’s most depressing advertisement on the radio. “Are you single and all your friends are married? Do you want to go out but have no one to go with?” Wow. Way to make me sound like a loser.  Now I’m dying to sign up for your offer.