Two complementary desserts

Two Complementary Desserts

one's easy . . . one's not as easy.

So the other day, I realized the thinly sliced bread I buy for E's sandwiches was super stale, so I tried to channel my inner Mom and decided to make bread pudding instead of throwing it away. I had a great recipe from my friend (and Vamp) Katie, which called for croissants, but I thought I could give it a try with the whole wheat I had instead. The result? A pretty good bread pudding. Albeit it wasn't the same as the traditional bread pudding my dad used to make (with raisins, the bread stacked neatly, served with a warm apricot sauce), but it was still pretty tasty. It called for egg yolks, so I found myself staring at the egg whites in my fridge for a few days before I found the motivation to make meringues.

Well, it was motivation and it was also finding a recipe. I couldn't believe none of my cookbooks had one. My dad was the meringue-maker in our house, and I still can't imagine what cookbook he had the recipe in that I don't have. I found a very complicated recipe for Meringue Mushrooms from Maida Heatter, but I really didn't have the motivation to try those, so instead i just modified it to be straight meringues. My dad used to line his cookie sheets with a brown paper bag, but parchment paper worked fine. He used to just spoon his onto the cookie sheet (and yet somehow still make them pretty), but I used a pastry bag and the rose tip which helped. Otherwise, I once again learned to read through an entire recipe BEFORE starting it, as I had to leave for work when they were still in the oven, but thankfully my sitter took them out for me without a problem. The other thing I learned? You should really make them on a dry day. Humidity wreaks havoc on the poor delicate things.

And now we have two new recipes! Quick Bread Pudding and Meringues. Enjoy!