Bread n' Butter

This is my recipe submission for Rach's Monthly Baking Challenge. This month's theme was horses. Horses? huh? That's what I said. But it makes sense because Rachel is from Kentucky and earlier this month was the Kentucky Derby!

I tried to get original with this one, but I wasn't totally excited about any of my ideas and I didn't want to carve out a horse cake--not my idea of fun. So I thought about it....what do horses eat- hay? apples? I didn't like where I was going with that thought so I went back to the Derby idea. I immediately thought of Derby Pie, but I made that last year.

So I started to think about hats. Then my mind wandered toward the Red Hat ladies. They have a cookbook you know. No, not hats. How about bourbon!?! Duh. Then I started thinking of bread pudding with a bourbon sauce. But I don't really like bread pudding, though it seemed to be the only solid idea I had. My hubby likes bread pudding, so I stuck with it.

It was simple, came together quickly, was lightly sweetened, moist and addictive. Rather than serving this with a bourbon sauce, the caramel is cooked, the bourbon is added and it's all mixed in with the custard. This recipe says it serves "2 greedy people" but we got 3 servings out of it. Except we ate all 3 servings in one night. LOL.

I topped mine with a few mini chocolate chips while it was still warm.

Caramel Croissant Pudding from Nigella Lawson

serves 2-3

• 2 stale croissants
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (see note)
• 2 tablespoons bourbon
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 2 eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Tear the croissants into pieces and put in a small gratin dish; I use a cast iron oval with a capacity of about 500ml/ 2 cups for this.

Put the sugar and water into a saucepan, and swirl around to help dissolve the sugar before putting the saucepan on the hob over medium to high heat. Caramelize the sugar and water mixture by letting it bubble away until it all turns a deep amber colour; this will take 3 to 5 minutes. Keep looking but don't be too timid.

Take the pan off the heat and add the cream - ignoring all spluttering - followed by the bourbon and milk. Whisk to mix, then still whisking add the beaten eggs. Pour this quickly over the croissants and leave to steep for 10 minutes.

Place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes and prepare to swoon.

NOTE: I baked my puddings in 3 individual ramekins, rather than one larger pan. They baked for 16 minutes and were perfect.

Also, make sure your cream is room temp before adding it to the caramel. This will keep your caramel from seizing up as much. You can do this by microwaving it for a few seconds.

Click here to see Nigella make her own croissant pudding!

Click here to see what Rachel made for this month's challenge!