Have you ever had a cooking semi-disaster that surprised you? And what did you do with it? Well, I had just such an experience this week while cooking up some of my zucchini to stock the freezer with loaves of bread for the winter.
I made zucchini blueberry bread with zucchini and blueberries from our garden. I was a little lazy and didn’t measure exact amounts (this fact will be important later). Well, the bread cooked nicely and seemed to rise and looked normal until I took it out of the oven. It fell flat and even sunk. The bread had cooked in the oven for an hour so I was quite surprised it turned out like this.
Trying to rescue this loaf of bread, I put it back in the oven for another 20-30 minutes. Nothing changed. It was still caved in and looking more like a puffy pancake than a loaf of bread. Yikes!
Truth be told, I realized by not measuring accurately I must have added too much moisture into the dough which soaked up the flour. Was it too much zucchini which I just kind of added by the handful? Or the blueberries that were bigger and juicer? I’ll never know. What I do know, is that next time I make this zucchini bread, I will measure the ingredients!
What immediately entered my brain is, “How am I going to admit that the zucchini queen really messed up a loaf of zucchini bread? And using a recipe from her own cookbook?” (Luckily, I don’t have these conversations with myself often, although I do seem to talk to myself a lot since we have been staying in place during COVID.)
So how to save this zucchini bread…well, I remembered making a bread pudding some time ago that turned out good and thought if I chunked up this bread and made a brandy sauce… well a good whiskey or brandy sauce could save about any baking mistake, right?
What I’d do differently next time is to whisk the cream cheese into the egg mixture instead of chunking it up with the bread. It didn’t seem to melt as nicely and looked messy when the dish was done.
It’s all in the sauce! Taste-testing allowed!
The zucchini bread pudding tasted fabulous even though the visual isn’t that pretty.
Yields 4
Save RecipeIngredients
- 4 cups zucchini bread, cubed (I used my goofed blueberry zucchini bread )
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup half and half
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- Brandy sauce (see recipe below)
Instructions
- PREP: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a baking dish by spraying with cooking oil.
- Place the cubed zucchini bread in the baking dish.
- Combine cream cheese, milk, eggs, vanilla and cinnamon in a bowl and mix well. Pour over the zucchini bread.
- Bake for 30 minutes (bread pudding should be set).
- Serve with brandy sauce poured over.
Notes
You can use any variety of zucchini bread you have.
BRANDY SAUCE:
Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons heavy cream
3-4 tablespoons brandy (or bourbon if you prefer)
Instructions:
Place all ingredients (except cream) in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook until sugar has dissolved. Stir in cream at the end.
Pour over bread pudding when served.