Easter weekend is upon us. A time for families and friends to be together and, as far as our families are concerned, the weekend revolves around food, from fish and chips on Good Friday to village sausage and homemade Ukrainian Easter bread on Sunday. Be it the Easter ham, the spring turkey or whatever meal you enjoy with the family, one thing will be certain: this weekend the Easter Bunny will come calling and with his visit there will definitely be mass quantities of chocolate in all of its amazing forms: bunnies, chicks, mini-eggs …
So what to do with that extra chocolate bunny that seems to stick around for the next couple of weeks? This triple chocolate bread pudding will take on any type of chocolate bunny that you want to devour. I would even be tempted toss in a few mini-eggs. If by chance there are no leftover bunnies use some good quality chocolate; our favourite is Lindt, which you can find a great selection of at Vincenzo’s in Waterloo.
Bread options include croissants, sour dough or leftover sweet egg bread.
Feel free to make this dessert and freeze it, then you can enjoy it when you are ready for chocolate again.
Triple Chocolate Bread Pudding
- Butter, as needed
- 4 L cubed bread (see options above)
- 6 whole eggs
- 750 ml 10% cream
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- Pinch nutmeg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup milk chocolate, chopped
- ½ cup white chocolate, chopped
For Chocolate Sauce
- 1 cup of milk chocolate, chopped
- 1/2 cup 35% cream
- 2 tbsp butter
Preheat oven to 350F;
Generously butter oven proof baking dish (9×13) and fill with cubed bread. Set aside;
Whisk together cream, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg;
Sprinkle chocolates over bread cubes, and then pour custard mixture over the entire dish;
Cover with foil. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 15 more minutes until golden brown. Let stand 10- 15 minutes. Serve with chocolate sauce.
Chefs Kirstie Herbstreit and Jody O’Malley are both Red Seal certified chefs. Together they run the company YouCanCook2, specializing in interactive dinner parties. You can also find them cooking at Entertaining Elements in St. Jacobs, where they hold private dinners for eight people. To contact the chefs, visit their website www.youcancook2.com.
