The same old birthday dessert, thank goodness

The Wall Street Journal

It was my daughter’s first birthday, 27 years ago, and two couples, serious eaters, were coming by with their kids for lunch. I needed a dessert that could both convey the depth of my happiness and satisfy my guests.

So I turned to the most challenging cookbook I owned: “Desserts,” by Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, where I lived at the time. Normally I read this book the way non-travelers read novels set overseas. I got a vicarious thrill from recipes that seemed just beyond my skill level.

And there it was: apple bread pudding. Not the usual chunky hash of bread and fruit and custard, but a sophisticated, layered version, to be sliced like a cake. Just the thing for an October birthday.

Somehow I managed to turn out clarified butter and lace it with cinnamon and sugar, and I pulled off the homemade apple purée and vanilla custard too. I slathered slices of toasted baguette with just enough butter so that I ran out of bread and butter simultaneously. And miracle of miracles, I got the whole thing to unmold from a big soufflé dish in one caramelized hunk, and all before the guests arrived.

There’s proof: a photo of 1-year-old Sarah and me, inches from that beautiful bread pudding, as she got her first lesson in candle blowing.

Not the usual chunky hash of bread and fruit and custard, but a sophisticated, layered version.

It was a hit, and I made it again the next year. And again, and again. Years passed. For Sarah’s birthday parties with schoolmates, I made a yellow cake in the shape of a carousel horse with homemade buttercream and piped flowers. For family, always, the bread pudding.

Nancy Silverton was at the bakery one day when I drove over to buy a baguette—part of the developing tradition involved using her bread, in homage. When she found out why I was there she handed me a raisin brioche, which she’d tried and liked better. I gleefully made the switch.

When Sarah left for college in New York I found an excuse to take a trip around the time of her birthday, a raisin brioche in my carry-on luggage. When the bakery stopped selling raisin brioche, I taught myself to make it—which you emphatically do not have to do.

What I learned above all: Despite its various layers and steps, this bread pudding is not wildly difficult to make. Time-consuming, yes, but you can make most of it in advance, which eliminates that last-minute flurry of overlapping chores. These days, by the time I’m ready to assemble the dessert, the clarified butter mixed with cinnamon and sugar is already in the refrigerator, as are the applesauce and custard. All I have to do is toast and coat the bread, set a layer of caramel in the soufflé dish and assemble the dessert.

Once the pudding’s in the oven, it puffs up and forms a crust. Unmolding it after a half-hour cool-down is simply a matter of warming the bottom of the baking dish and inverting it onto a platter, but you mustn’t pull the dish away too quickly. Once you’ve flipped the dish, give its bottom a few good raps with your knuckles and wait until you hear the pudding release with a satisfying thwock.

People who don’t like to bake complain that it’s a rule-bound art: Follow every step of the recipe to the letter or fail. I say the ritual is the point. Every year I do the same things with the same ingredients, each gesture infused with memories of birthdays past.

Adapted from “Desserts” by Nancy Silverton

A Celebration-Worthy Bread Pudding: The Recipe

Apple Bread Pudding

TOTAL TIME: 4 hours

ACTIVE TIME: 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients

For the applesauce:

• 6 tart green apples (about 3 pounds)
• 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 1½ cups granulated sugar

For the custard:

• 1½ cups whole milk
• 1½ cups heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 2 eggs, plus 2 yolks
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

For the clarified butter:

• 1 cup unsalted butter

For the cinnamon toast:

• 5 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 slices brioche loaf, sliced ½- inch thick

For caramelizing the dish:

• ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons water

Directions

1. Make applesauce: Peel, halve and core apples and cut into ¼- inch slices. Toss with lemon juice. In a large sauté pan over high heat, melt butter, scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and add bean. Once mixture starts to bubble, add apples and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in sugar and reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring, until liquid reduces to a thick sauce and apples are cooked through, about 8 minutes. (Different apples give off different amounts of moisture, so be sure to cook off enough liquid to make a very thick sauce.) Pour into a bowl and remove vanilla bean, and let cool. Purée cooled apple sauce in a food processor or blender. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to use.
2. Make custard: Add milk, cream, nutmeg and cinnamon to a medium lidded saucepan over medium-high heat, scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and add bean. Scald milk mixture by bringing it nearly to a boil then immediately removing it from heat. Cover and let stand 30 minutes.
3. In a bowl, whisk together eggs and yolks. Remove bean and cinnamon stick from saucepan. Place milk mixture on stove top over medium-high heat and return to scalding. Pour over eggs, whisking constantly. Strain and discard solids. Let liquid stand for 30 minutes, and refrigerate until ready to use. (All components prepared up to this point can be stored in refrigerator until you are ready to proceed with assembling dessert, up to 4 days.)
4. Clarify butter: Melt 1 cup butter in a saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and let settle a few minutes. Skim foam from surface. Use a spoon to scoop out clarified butter, leaving solids in pan. You should have about ¾ cup. Discard milk solids or save for another use. Let clarified butter cool to room temperature.
5. Make cinnamon toast: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir sugar and cinnamon into room-temperature clarified butter. Place sliced brioche on a baking sheet. Toast in oven until outside is slightly crisp but inside is still soft, 5 minutes. Let cool. Leave oven on. Brush cooled brioche with a thin layer of cinnamon butter.
6. Caramelize soufflé dish: Bring sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat. Boil until caramel is a deep amber. Pour into a 7-inch soufflé dish, quickly tilting to coat bottom.
7. Assemble bread pudding: Line bottom of soufflé dish with brioche, trimming edges so slices fit snugly. Fill any gaps with trimmings. Spoon just enough custard over top to cover bread. Gently press to ensure custard soaks in. Spoon half of applesauce over custard, then cover with another layer of custard. Repeat process: toast, custard, applesauce, custard. End with two layers of toast and remaining custard. Let sit 20 minutes. Bake until top of pudding is brown and crusty, 1 hour. Remove from oven and let cool 30 minutes.
8. Before serving, briefly hold soufflé dish over very low heat on stove top to melt caramel on bottom. Run a thin knife around edges of pudding to free it from sides of dish. Place a platter on top of dish, flip and place on work surface. Knock on bottom of dish and wait until you hear pudding release. If pudding seems loose, wrap an aluminum foil collar around it and let set 15 minutes. Serve warm.

—When it comes to special-occasion baking, this elegant apple bread pudding takes the cake