SCENE 1
Half Baked Bakery

    [AB walks past the display window and walks back, sniffs] Mmm, bread pudding. My favorite dessert since, well, forever. I mean, yeah, cake hits the spot from time to time, and I've never been known to turn my spoon down at ice cream. But saying no to bread pudding of any shape, size, or flavor, is something I simply cannot do. Heck, I'd even accept it from strangers.
    The attraction, besides the flavor, the texture, and heady warm aroma is that, well, there's something noble about bread pudding. About worn-out, stale, old bread rising up from its crumbs to be reborn, Phoenix-like, as dessert. Bread pudding is an act of culinary defiance, born of an unconquerable sweet tooth. Bread pudding proudly proclaims, though the pantry bears not, though mad dogs claw at the door and the winds of Thor are blowing cold, I shall have my pudding, not to mention my ...

[Good Eats theme plays]

SCENE 2
The Kitchen

    Although every culture that bakes bread has a version of bread pudding, no one beats the English when it comes to bread utilization. After all, this was the culture that, before the advent of plates, served their meals upon trenchers—thick slabs of toasted bread—and, who often served their soups, or sops, inside hollowed-out loaves. And yes, that's where we get the words sop, as in "sop it up," and soup.
    Eventually, some cook, desperate for dessert, decided to soak some old bread crusts in milk, add some sugar, and bake. But this English connection really is important, because as any Pink Floyd fan can tell you, "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding." See, in England, "pudding" means dessert. So, bread pudding means "bread dessert" and does not necessarily refer to pudding in the American-Bill Cosby sense of the word.
    Now, despite the fact that American recipe writers have spent the better part of a century trying to gussy up bread pudding, we can tear it down to its basics, and understand what really makes it tick, as long as we think "car".
    [walks over to a very small British car in the living room area] Think about it, the main part of a car is the chassis and the body, okay? And that would be played in bread pudding by, of course, the bread. It's the star of the show. Then of course, you have accessories. Things that add interest, but are not necessarily required. Mud flaps, sun-roofs, audio systems, fuzzy dice, and what-not. In a bread pudding, that would be flavorants, and of course, hunks and chunks: things like nuts, fruits, chocolate, and the like.

    And we here at Good Eats Industries, have carefully thought one out.

AB: [whistles for a blackboard, which rolls into view] Come on, come on.

10-12 CUPS BREAD
    5 CUPS DAIRY
    1 CUP SUGAR
    3 EGGS
    3 YOLKS
    2 OZ LIQUID

    [later, testing with a Thermapen] Ah, 183 degrees. A slight overshoot, but perfectly acceptable. So, we cover and steep for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, we'll contemplate the ovum.

Many anthropologists argue that the word "bread"
originally derived from the word "brew".

SCENE 3
The Kitchen

    [retrieving the dairy from the microwave] All right, finally, we're ready to add the steeped dairy, but be careful to strain out all but the tiniest solids. Now don't worry, even though this is still hot, once combined, we'll only be around 90 degrees, which poses no threat of curdling the eggs, certainly not with all the sugar and fat that's in here.

Not ready to bake? Stash your covered custard in the fridge
for up to 72 hours. Reblend before use.

    Now that we have constructed ourselves a sound power plant, and added a few flavorful accessories, it's time to procure the proper body.

SCENE 4
Half Baked Bakery

GUESTS: Yeast Sock Puppets
              Baker

    [outside] Never forget, my friends, that the name of the dish is "bread" pudding, and that the eponymous ingredient should never be lost in the shuffle. Now, we have few actual requirements for the bread, but the first one is we have got to have

YEAST SOCK PUPPET: [appears, belches, exits]

... a yeast bread, typically produced through considerable kneading. A process which creates gluten strands in the dough, which can capture and hold the gaseous by-product created by the yeast, and stand up to the structural rigors of bread pudding, which shall become evident forthwith.
    [inside] I am visiting my local bakery to fulfill bread pudding requirement number two, only great-tasting breads go into bread pudding. I mean, just as you wouldn't want to cook with a wine you wouldn't drink, you wouldn't want to make bread pudding with a yeast bread you wouldn't eat, all right?
    Now many different loaves here would do just fine, but here are my two favorites of all time. We have here challah, or chal-lah, which is a relatively tender yeast bread containing a fair amount of egg, and a classic boule [pron: BOO-ul], a lean French bread, which I find superior to the often bland baguette.

AB: My good woman, this is a handsome boule.

    That's French for "ball", you know?

BAKER: Thank you Sir. I bake them myself.
AB: Excellent! Tell me, might your boules be stale, ma'am?
B: Of course not. What kind of baker do you take me for?
AB: I meant no offense. Simply that a loaf begins to stale the moment it exits the oven.
B: Well mine don't.
AB: Yes they do.
B: Do not.
AB: Do so.
B: Do not.

    Clearly it is time for a teeny taste of science.

    But here's the thing. Just because the bread is baked doesn't mean it's dead, all right? Things keep happening. Moisture starts slowly migrating from the interior out towards the drier crust, and these molecules slowly start to realign with each other, an arrangement not unlike a crystal. This process, called "retrogradation", explains why the Chinese take-out rice in your refrigerator right now has turned into wee little hard rocks, okay?
    Now, this retrogradation, combined with the slight drying of the interior that happens over time, results in the physical phenomenon we refer to as 'stale'. And stale bread has always been considered good for bread pudding, because this structure is very, very strong, and will not dissolve until the temperature is raised once again.

AB: And so madam, I ask you one final time, have you any stale boule?
B: No, because like every other baker these days, I use dough conditioners.
AB: Ah, which explains their lustrous shine?
B: I'm talking about natural substances which can enrich the texture of the bread, and which use enzymes to slow retrogradation and staling.
AB: Thus buying you more time to sell your wares.
B: Thus giving my customers more time to enjoy them.

    Okay, exactly. So we see that these days, it's actually kind of tough to find a truly stale loaf of bread.

AB: I will take this boule, Madam. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.
B: Hey, what about all the baguettes?
AB: Oh, um, no thanks. They're on the floor.

Bread stales fastest around 40°F, so consider refrigerating your loaf overnight before turning it into pudding.

SCENE 5
The Kitchen

    All right, time to build a pudding. Place your loaf on the counter thusly. And fetcheth forth your biggest serrated knife, either a bread knife or a slicer.

    Now we do with the interior. Now we want to get as much of this out in an orderly manner, so I'm going to actually make a cut at an angle down into the shell, turning. I do not want to go through the shell. We need it to hold liquid later. So I'm just getting up under there. I'm going to create some little plugs to pull out, so straight in and across. I'm going to make parallel cuts here, about an inch. Again, not going through the bottom or the sides. Turn 90 degrees, and repeat the procedure. We're going to basically create these little plugs. If you've ever had a camera case with the pull-out foam, this is just like that, only you're not going to keep a camera in here. There. Now just reach in, and start pulling out the plugs. Reach down as far to the crust as you possibly can. The goal here is to hollow as much of the bread out as possible, without breaking the crust. [places plugs into the pan]

    Now, add the custard. Odds are good that this bread is not going to drink up all of this custard. That is okay. I'd rather have a little too much than too little.
    Now, many is the recipe that calls for moving this straight to the heat. But I want complete and absolute saturation, so I'm going to let this rest for at least a couple of hours at room temperature. So cover, just with plastic wrap, push right down on top of the bread. Now, if you want more time, you could stash this for up to eight hours in the refrigerator, which of course would reinforce staling even further, which would make the bread hold together even better. Not altogether a bad idea.
    Now just in case it has sprung a leak, park your bread shell in a 10-inch skillet, just to be safe.

    The soak still has half an hour, but we're going to let this [bread shell] get a little bit of a head start.
    [later, bread shell removed and next to pudding] All right, time to load up the pudding. Begin by just grabbing handfuls and placing it kind of up underneath the lip. We don't want any air gaps under there, and then just fill all the way to the top, doming it every so slightly. Pour on a little custard, but stop before it pours up over the edge of the crust.
    All right, into the middle of the oven, and set your timer for two hours. At that point, we should be right around 165 degrees.

"Poor Knights of Windsor", "Wet Nellie", and "Whitepot" are all versions of bread pudding in England.

SCENE 6
The Kitchen

GUEST: Thing

    When it comes to serving, you've got options.
    If you prefer the luscious interior, feel free to just spoon right in. But I find that the real charm of bread pudding is in the contrast of custard and crust, of creamy and crunchy. So I slice it like what it is, a loaf of bread. And, I prefer it straight up, although whipped cream would be nice, as would a hard sauce, but that's another show. Hey, jot that down would you, Thing, please?

THING: [opens a think 3-ringed binder book entitled, "... that's another show" and jots it down]

    Wow, that's a thick book.
    Now I can see that some of you are saying, "Nice, but not exactly convenient." Well just to prove how extraordinarily versatile this dessert can be, we will produce yet another with the, hmm, two minutes that remain. Let's say that, quite suddenly, you were struck by the desire for bread pudding.

    Once again, I want to let this sit for at least two hours at room temperature or eight hours in the fridge.
    [at the oven] Again, we bake at 325 degrees, until the bread cubes start to crisp and the internal hits 170 degrees, which, because we're dealing with less mass, will only be about 45 minutes.
    [the baking is done] Excellent. Now if more crispy crunch is desired up top, spritz with a little bit of butter, and then set your oven to broil, still on the middle rack, for four to five minutes. And remember to leave the door slightly cracked, so that the thermostat doesn't kick the broiler off.
    [getting in the car that is still in front of the fireplace] To enjoy, you can certainly reheat in oven or microwave, or simply serve at room temperature, which is my preference.
    Well I hope we've inspired you to undertake the act of dessert defiance known as bread pudding. It is a dish that, despite ancient origins and a marginalized reputation, is well worth the test drive.
    See you next time on Good Eats.

Transcribed by Michael Roberts
Proofread by Michael Menninger

*from the Led Zepplin song, "No Quarter"
** from Pink Floyd's, "Another Brick in the Wall"

Last Edited on 12/05/2011