With Mexico going to hell in a handbasket — or shall I say a pig-hide canasta — nothing seems more comforting right now than a warm homemade dessert.
I love bread pudding, but it always seems like so much work. And I couldn’t afford another trip to the supermarket with all the flu-hysterical crazies. So yesterday, with three-quarters of a loaf of stale bread and some Clementine oranges, I turned to Elena Zelayeta.
Elena was a blind Mexican immigrant who wrote Elena’s Famous Mexican and Spanish Recipes, a bestselling cookbook that’s now out of print. I found a copy of the first edition, published in 1944, stuffed into a kitchen drawer at my mom’s house. It was my grandmother’s, my mom said. I thumbed through it for a few minutes and fell in love.
Not only is the book full of Mexican basics (chiles en nogada, sopa de fideo, capirotada, etc.), but it was written back when housewives actually spent three hours or more on a single dish, and asked the butcher to do things like “shape their lamb chops.” Her membrillo recipe calls for leaving it out in the sun for two days to prevent mold. How freaking awesome is that?
The dessert section overflows with bread puddings, all of them simple constructions of milk-soaked bread, eggs and sugar. I made the orange version last night and finished the sauce this morning. Tasted a spoonful as it cooled and… mmmmhhhrrrmmm. (Sorry, that was my pleasurable moaning noise.)
With something this good, you gotta bring out the big guns and make homemade whipped cream. And then try not to lick the bowl after.
I swear, this thing really might be able to cure swine flu. Or at least get everyone out from under their porcine cloud.
Recipe after the jump.
Budin de Pan y Naranja
Orange Bread Pudding
From Elena’s Famous Mexican and Spanish Recipes, published in 1944 and edited by “A Group of San Francisco Home Economists”
Serves 6
2 cups hot milk
2 cups cubed bread, without crust (I left mine on because I’m lazy)
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
2 oranges, grated rind and juice (I used only one of the orange’s grated rind; two seemed like too much)
For sauce:
1 cup chopped raisins
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/4 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Directions:
To the hot milk add the cubed bread, butter and sugar and let stand until cold. Then add the beaten eggs, orange juice and grated rind and pour into a buttered casserole or baking pan. Bake in a moderate oven (350F) for 1 hour. Serve hot with the following sauce.
To make sauce, place raisins in hot water. Then add sugar mixed with cornstarch and cinnamon, and cook, stirring until thick. Remove from heat, add lemon juice and pour over hot pudding.