This recipe is too awesome not to share.  I loved it when it was served at a baby shower this week.
Be forewarned -- it is not low calorie food.  But it is worth going without eating the entire day just to have a serving of this.   Don't leave off the cream sauce.  That is what really makes the pudding heavenly.

Kneader’s Raspberry Bread Pudding   --  Awesome!!!

Ingredients

• 1½ loaves aged, white bread
• 1 qt. heavy cream
• 3 C. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 5 C. raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 1 C. sugar
• ½ C. apple juice

Vanilla Cream Sauce

• 1⅓ C. butter
• 5 T. flour
• 3 C. heavy cream
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• ⅔ C. sugar

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, combine cream, sugar, egg and vanilla and beat until well combined.
2. Cut bread into 1½ inch cubes and add to cream mixture, coating the bread well.
3. Let bread sit in cream mixture for 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes to allow cream to absorb.
4. After mixture has absorbed for 30 minutes, mix the raspberries, sugar and apple juice. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
5. Layer a 9x13 inch baking pan ¾ full with the bread mix and pour fruit filling over the bread mix, spreading evenly.
6. Top with the remaining bread.
7. Bake 40 minutes at 375 degrees F.
8. Serve warm topped with vanilla cream sauce.
9. If you are looking for nice square pieces, chill before slicing.

VANILLA CREAM SAUCE

1. Melt butter in medium saucepan and add flour. Stir 10 minutes until it has a nutty aroma, but make sure not to brown. Add salt, cream and sugar and stir until mixture becomes thick. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
2. Serve warm over the pudding.

Chevre truffles

I love chevre (goat cheese) and dark chocolate, but I'd never thought of combining the 2 until my friend Jilly posted this recipe for Chevre truffles!  If I have time today I'll give it a go.

5 oz Goat cheese - softened
1/4 c brown sugar
Add 5 oz melted chocolate - we prefer Dark - and 2T soft butter.
Whisk til smooth. Refrigerate til set.
Form into little balls, working quickly. Refrigerate again. When firm, roll around in more melted chocolate - we prefer Dark!
Place on parchment on a baking sheet. Sprinkle kosher salt, dust with cocoa, colored sugar sprinkles.
Refrigerate til set.

Sipping HOT chocolate!

This is not your grandma's hot cocoa.  If you've never had sipping hot chocolate you've never tasted heaven!  Dad's hot chocolate is pretty good as well :-)

Moonstruck Chocolate sipping hot chocolate

500 g whole milk (2 cups)
200 g light cream 15% fat (3/4 cup)
250 g Moonstruck dark chocolate 68% cocoa
60 g sugar (1/2 cup)
2 cinnamon sticks
1 vanilla pod Tahitian (scraped and split)
3 star anis
2 g sea salt (almost 1/2 tsp)
1 gr Espelette Pepper* (1/4 tsp)

Directions:
1. Bring the milk and cream to a boil.
2. Add the chopped chocolate and all the spices.
3. Stir and set aside and let rest for 10 minutes covered.
4. Re-boil while stirring and set aside a second time for 10 minutes covered
5. Re-boil again a 3rd time while stirring.
6. Strain out all the spices.
7. Serve warm at 80°C.
8. Can be refrigerated and warmed up the following day or served cold as a “killer pudding shot”

*The Espelette pepper can be replaces by half the weight in chipotle pepper powder

Pumpkin Dump Cake

I'm not a big pumpkin fan, but this cake is delicious!  Plus it has been too long since anyone has posted a recipe (and I need somewhere to store the recipe for me), so in honor of the fall season... enjoy!!

Pumpkin Dump Cake

2 cups canned pumpkin
2 cups evaporated milk
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 white or yellow cake mix
1 1/2 cubes (3/4 cup) butter

Mix pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, salt and spices, stir well. Pour into greased and floured 9 x13 inch pan. Cut butter into cake mix with a pastry cutter, then sprinkle on top of batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 45­-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm or cool with whipped cream or ice cream.

Apple Puffed Pancake

I made some mini Dutch Babies for the first time EVER a few weeks ago, and they were delish.  Here's the next recipe on my list from my new cookbook...

Apple Puffed Pancake
Yields 6-8 servings

6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup flour
3 T granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
2 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
2-3 T brown sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a blender or large bowl, mix eggs, milk, flour, sugar, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon until well blended.
In the oven, melt butter in a 9x13 baking dish; add apple slices and return to oven until butter sizzles.  Do not let it brown.  Remove dish from oven and immediately pour batter over apples.  Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake in middle of oven for 20 minutes or until puffed and brown.  Serve immediately.

New cookbook review

What I think will become my new favorite cookbook arrived the other day, and I can't wait to delve into it!  Aaron suggested I do something ala Julie & Julia, but that would require far too much planning, and we all know that I'm not a planner.  The best part about this book is the fact that one of our favorite dishes is in it...my stuffed meatloaf!  Well, not mine, per se, but the one I prepare.  So let's start there. If you haven't had the pleasure of consuming this - MAKE IT.  But invite some people over for dinner, because this meatloaf is about a foot long.  Really.

Meatloaf Stuffed with Basil, Cheese, Prosciutto and Sun-dried Tomatoes

Makes 8-10 servings

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 8 ounces roughly chopped fresh mushrooms (3 cups)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 ¾ cups fresh sourdough bread crumbs (see note) or just get them from a can!
• 1 ½ pounds lean ground beef
• ¾ pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed and discarded
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup minced fresh parsley
• ¾ cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon dried
• 3 ounces sliced prosciutto
• ½ pound thinly sliced havarti cheese
• 1 ¼ cups fresh basil, cut into thin strips
• 1/3 cup drained oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, cut into strips
• Sprigs of fresh basil (optional) 

Place oven rack in middle position. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. For easiest cleanup, line a jellyroll pan with parchment paper. Aluminum foil will work, but you must remove the meatloaf from the pan within 4 or 5 minutes of removing it from the oven, or it may stick to the foil.

Heat oil and butter in a large skillet. Add onion and cook on medium-high heat until softened, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and mushrooms; cook until mushrooms are soft and liquid has evaporated. Season to taste with salt and pepper; set aside to cool slightly before proceeding.

In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, cooled mushroom mixture, ground beef, sausage, eggs, parsley, cheese, thyme and a little pepper. Gently mix by hand.

To taste your meat mixture, pull out about 1 tablespoon and microwave it for about 1 minute or until it is cooked. Allow it to cool enough so you can taste it. Correct seasonings if necessary. (I never do this)

Gently pat meat mixture into a 10-by-15-inch rectangle on a sheet of wax paper. With a longer end facing you, layer the prosciutto, cheese, fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes on the bottom two-thirds of the meat. Grab the edge of the wax paper closest to you and roll up the loaf. Once meatloaf is rolled up, seal ends and press down slightly to seal lengthwise seam. Place seam side down on prepared jellyroll pan. (Meatloaf can be refrigerated at this point and cooked later.)  If you don't seal your edges you will have an explosion of melted cheese, and you don't want all that gooey goodness to leak out!

Bake, uncovered, for 65 minutes or until the center of the meatloaf registers 160 degrees on a meat thermometer.


Note: To make fresh bread crumbs, tear the bread into fourths and place in food processor fitted with the metal blade. Process until medium-size bread crumbs are formed. This process also can be accomplished in a blender, but with smaller quantities. 

Caramel Apple Cider

This recipe is in the Macbeth Family Cookbook, coming from a good friend of mine who makes it when I host my cookie exchange party.  I was in charge of bringing a beverage to our RS Christmas Social this past Sunday and decided to make this delicious drink.  People went wild over it.  It might have something to do with the fact that I accidentally doubled the caramel amounts and then purposely decided not to make further adjustments.  It is delicious either way.  I have quadrupled this recipe for you, because the small amount it makes from the cookbook recipe is not nearly enough to enjoy properly.  This stuff is amazing.  Try it.

Caramel Apple Cider

In a saucepan, while stirring, heat over medium heat until it boils:

1 c cream

1 c brown sugar

Add to mixture and heat until it starts to steam:

2 c water

3 quarts apple juice or cider

dash of cinnamon or a cinnamon stick

Serve warm; delicious with a dollop of whipped cream and a swirl of caramel sauce on top.

If you, too, are living on the wild side and would like to enjoy my happy mistake, increase your cream and brown sugar to 2 cups, and the water to 4 cups.