Raisin – Karen in the Kitchen

To be honest, I’d never had bread pudding before this one. Just the name of the dessert itself did not sound very appetizing to me. Mushy, wet bread for a dessert? I’d rather spend my calories on something with chocolate, right?

Little did I know that it is rich and decadent in its own right. Bread pudding also takes on the flavor of anything you put into it. This recipe calls for apple pie filling, but you can use other fruit flavors if you want. You can omit that part altogether if you want.

I just love the golden raisins too. Although I’m not sure how those renegade dark ones got mixed in. It’s all good though! I think that the secret ingredient, which is not really secret because it’s the main ingredient, is…….the bread. The sweet Hawaiian bread is good enough to just eat alone. Can you imagine that used in this way? Just Heavenly!

This recipe really isn’t complete without a nice scoop (or two) of vanilla ice cream on top too. The contrast of cold and creamy with warm and gooey are just in perfect alignment.

Hawaiian Bread Pudding

1 round loaf King’s Hawaiian bread

½ cup butter (1 stick)

2 cup milk

1 cup sugar

5 eggs, beaten

1 can Comstock apple pie filling

1 cup raisins

cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease 9×13 inch pan.

Cut bread into small pieces and arrange in pan. Spread apple pie filling over bread. Sprinkle with raisins. Heat milk, sugar and butter until melted, medium heat (do not boil), then let it cool. Add beaten eggs to the milk mixture and pour over the bread. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked through and firm.

Enjoy warm with vanilla ice cream on top.

I was under the gun to bake something for my son’s teacher, whose birthday is this week. I didn’t have much in the way of ingredients, but I did have lots of those mini boxes of raisins that I put in my kids’ lunch boxes, so they ended up here and not in my kids’ lunch.

I hope the teacher appreciates the sacrifice of my children!

As always, get your dry ingredients together. I know lots of people will tell you to sift, but I just can’t be bothered. I just take out a wisk and get the lumps out and everything incorporated. It does the same thing as sifting.

Every cookie’s gotta start with sugar, butter and eggs. Mix until light and fluffy.

Add in the dry ingredients and the oats last. That way, the oats don’t get too crumbly.

An oatmeal raisin cookie isn’t an oatmeal raisin cookie without raisins. So add those in last.

The standard size ice cream scooper I like to use is a size 30 scoop. The number means how many scoops you will get out of a gallon of ice cream.

With cookies, it’s really important to get all of the them the same size, so they bake evenly.

You probably knew that already, but sometimes I like to give too much information, so there you go!

These were a lovely rich cookie with a nice chew, but not too chewy. They’re best warm out of the oven, but then again isn’t everything better fresh out of the oven?

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

adapted from annieseats.com

1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups light brown sugar, packed
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a large bowl beat butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla with a hand held mixer until well blended. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture, stirring until just combined.

Fold in rolled oats, raisin and walnuts (if desired). You can drop dough by rounded teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto a cookie sheet. I used a size 30 ice cream scoop for mine. The number of the scoop refers to how many scoops you’ll get per quart. On my scoop, the number is stamped on the scraper.

Bake for 15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool 2 minutes and remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: 3 dozen cookies with a #30 scoop.