Eggnog Bread Pudding with White Chocolate Eggnog Sauce

I love bread puddings!  You can eat them for breakfast, brunch, or dessert, or whenever!  I made this a few years ago and went to make it again this year and when my nine year old asked what I was making, he goes, "Yes!!!  I loved that!"  I guess it made an impression on him the last time I made it!

This is based off a recipe in one of my Southern Living Cookbooks, but I had changed it so much and scribbled so much in the margins, I finally had to write my own recipe for it!  So, I made it a few times this holiday season just to make sure my recipe was the way I wanted it!!  It was gobbled up every time. 

It is so very very delicious!

Eggnog Bread Pudding with White Chocolate Eggnog Sauce Recipe

1 (1 lb.) loaf of cinnamon bread, cubed
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 c. milk
1 1/2 c. egg nog
1 c. whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
2 T. melted butter
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1.  Place bread cubes in lightly greased 9x13 pan.

2.  Whisk together all ingredients.

3.  Pour egg mixture over bread cubes, pressing down bread gently to absorb liquid.  Cover and chill at least an hour.  (I often do overnight if I'm serving this for a breakfast.)

4.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until a knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  I sometimes put aluminum foil over the top halfway through baking so it doesn't get too brown on the top.  (Though I personally like my bread pudding drier...)

5.  Let stand at least 5 minutes before serving.  Serve with warm White Chocolate Eggnog Sauce. 

White Chocolate Eggnog Sauce

1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. eggnog
1/2 c. whipping cream
1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch
4 oz.  white chocolate

1.  Combine first 4 ingredients in a heavy saucepan, cook over low heat 5 minutes or until butter melts and sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally.

2.  Combine water and cornstarch - stir into eggnog mixture.  Bring to a boil and boil one minute stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and add white chocolate.  Stir until dissolved.  Serve warm.  Makes 2 1/2 cups. 

Make Ahead Blackberry Citrus Baked French Toast

This recipe can be made totally ahead of time, or made and devoured all in the same day! I think this is my husband's new favorite breakfast item. He wanted to make it yesterday again, and came to me holding a recipe. I told him that recipe wouldn't do him any good, because this dish was my recipe. Then he asked if I had it in the green cookbook (my tried and true cookbook), and I said, "No, it's in my head." Until now, that is.

You can make this using either lemon or orange. I've done both, and they both taste good. The orange and blackberry combination was my son and husband's favorite. I might try raspberry and lemon next time, or strawberry and orange.

Blackberry Citrus Baked French Toast:

The Fruity Filling:

1 bag of frozen blackberries thawed (or any fruit you'd like to try)

1/2 c. sugar

1 1/2 T. corn starch

Mix together the sugar and corn starch and pour over blackberries. Heat fruit mixture over medium heat, stirring often. Use potato masher to mash down fruit. When mixture has thickened, strain it through a siv, and let cool in fridge.

The Cream Cheese Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese

1/4 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp. lemon zest (or orange zest)

Beat all ingredients together until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

The Egg Mixture:

4 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. packed brown sugar

1 3/4 c. half and half

Beat all ingredients together until combined. Set aside.

The Citrus Whipped Cream:

1 c. whipping cream

2 T. sugar

1 T. fresh lemon juice (or orange juice)

1 tsp. lemon zest (or orange zest)

Whip the cream. As cream begins to get foamy add sugar. As it gets a little thicker at lemon juice and zest. Set aside.

1. Cut 1 loaf of french bread into semi-thick (about 1 inch) slices

2. Layer one layer of the bread slices in a greased pan.

3. Spread a generous amount of cream cheese filling on top of each slice.

4. Top with a large spoonful of your fruity mixture. (I save some of the fruit sauce to use as garnish)

5. Place another layer of bread slices on top of the other slices; making a sandwich.

6. Pour egg mixture evenly on top, making sure all the bread gets covered.

7. Cover and place in fridge over night. (Or if wanting to eat it the same day at least 30 minutes until almost all of the egg mixture has been absorbed.)

8. Remove from fridge and sprinkle the top with 1 T. brown sugar (if desired, not necessary - it just adds little crunchies to the top)

9. Bake at 325 degrees, uncovered, for 40 minutes or until lightly browned.

10. Serve with citrus whipped cream and remaining fruit sauce if desired.

(If that's not sweet enough for you already, and you have my buttermilk syrup recipe, you can serve it with that too. It totally doesn't need it, and I prefer not to have it together, but my husband just can't get enough sugar...)

Make ahead Biscuit Recipe

Technically, this is just my regular biscuit recipe, but a few weeks ago I thought about making them the night before and baking them in the morning, and tried it and it turned out!

I grew up watching my grandma and my dad make biscuits. (Mostly, I would just watch so I could snitch the dough to eat! I would eat biscuit dough over cookie dough any day! I love it!) Even though I watched them make biscuits, getting a recipe out of them is useless. I come from a family of cooks that use the word, "handful" as a term of measurement. (This is my Grandma giving me a recipe, "put your flour in until it looks right, add your milk (no measurements mind you), mix it up until it looks right," etc. etc.) I'm like that too, but I'm really making an effort to write down all my recipes with measurements so my children won't be bugged one day when they try to cook my food.

I decided to come up with my own biscuit recipe when John and I went to make biscuits one morning and found three recipes written down from my dad, three recipes that were ALL DIFFERENT for the same biscuit! Most biscuit recipes are basically the same with a few little preference changes. I personally think mine are the most delicious, of course.

Holly's Biscuit Recipe:

2 c. flour

3/4 tsp. salt (If I use salted butter, I don't always add the salt)

3 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. butter

1 c. plus 1 T. buttermilk (do not use low fat buttermilk; you can, but it does make a difference!)

1.  Mix dry ingredients together. Cut in butter until the size of oatmeal or a little larger.

2.  Make a hole in your flour mixture (or volcano as my son says) and pour in your buttermilk. (A method I learned from watching my dad.) Mix until dough comes together.

3.  Knead your dough together a little bit with your hands.

4.  Roll or spread out the dough with your hands on a floured surface. Cut to desired sizes (Make sure they are pretty thick!) (If you don't have a biscuit cutter - my family often uses the tops glasses to cut biscuits).

5.  Place biscuits, touching, on greased pan. TOUCHING.  My husband had a hard time with this when he first starting making this recipe.  They rise taller if they are touching.  (If you are making these to bake the next day, cover and place in your fridge.)

6.  Bake at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes or until very lightly browned.

This recipe makes about 10 biscuits, depending on how thick you cut out your biscuits, or how much dough you ate! :)

Make ahead crepes recipe

Amongst many of my family members, nieces and nephews included, crepes is a favorite , and highly requested breakfast item. I think my son asked for crepes for breakfast or dinner for almost a week before we finally made them last week. He even pronounces them the French way, though not on purpose.

I introduced my family's crepes to John after we got married, but he has since mastered the art, and is always in charge of the crepe making while I make the fruity middle. We not only eat these for breakfast, but we make them for dessert as well filling them with milk chocolate and fresh strawberries, and nutella and banana. Or chocolate with banana, and nutella with strawberries. Or, if you are John, you combine all those things together. I've also had the lemon juice and powdered sugar way as well, though still tasty, but to me, rather bland compared with the fruity middles.

This is a recipe that you can prepare ahead of time. You can make the batter a day ahead, whip the whipping cream a day ahead, and prepare the fruity middle a day ahead. Then, you only have to warm up your fruit mixture before serving.

I could eat 10 of these crepes by myself, but I try to limit myself to three...

Yummy Crepe Recipe:

1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 T. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups of milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 T. melted butter
2 eggs

For the batter: Put the dry ingredients into a blender and mix well. Add wet ingredients, blend until mixed and smooth.

We always have helpers in the kitchen...

We use our griddle to make crepes on. Grease your griddle or pan. Pour desired size batter and cook. Knowing when your crepe is ready to flip is like knowing when your pancakes are ready to flip; the very outside gets a little bubbly, and the outsides start to change color, getting a little darker like the picture shows below. Then flip. You don't want these brown, so watch carefully, and take them off the heat once they have firmed up in the middle.

For the fruit filling: (You can choose any fruit you like, my favorite to use is strawberry) In a saucepan combine one regular sized bag of frozen strawberries, 1 1/2 T. corn starch, and 1/2 c. sugar. Cook over medium heat until thick. If using whole strawberries, take a potato masher and mash through the strawberries once they are soft. Really, my husband would sweeten his strawberries even more, so sweeten the strawberries to your taste.

Top with sweetened whipped cream.

This recipe makes about 12 crepes (using about 3/4 c. batter per crepe)

John has also subbed in a portion of white wheat flour to the batter. I didn't really like it, but if you are trying to be healthier... My feelings were if I wanted a heartier crepe, we could have just made wheat pancakes.

Enjoy! These are so yummy! (We even have them for dinner sometimes...)

Make ahead bran muffin recipe

I know what some of you are thinking... Bran muffins? Gross! So, not the case! Paired with a little Brummel & Brown I can't eat a ton of these things. Not to mention, your kids will eat a ton of these things!! My sister gave me this recipe a long time ago, it's a favorite of her family's and mine too!

The great thing about this recipe is they are not only good, but it makes a ton (you could half the recipe), and you store the batter in your fridge and make them at your leisure! So, on those mornings you really don't feel like doing anything; you open your fridge, take out the bowl with the muffin batter in it, scoop some in some muffin tins, and breakfast is served!!

Bran Muffins:

2 c. boiling water

2 c. All Bran

4 eggs

2 c. brown sugar

1 c. oil

5 c. flour

5 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

4 c. buttermilk

4 c. Bran flakes

1. Add All Bran to boiling water, set aside to soak.

2. Beat eggs, brown sugar, and oil. Add in soaked All Bran mixture and beat to combine.

3. Beat in remaining ingredients.

4. Preheat oven to 375.

5. Grease muffin tins or liners

6. Fill muffin tins 2/3 - 3/4 full, depending on how big you want your muffins to be.

7. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until toothpick test comes out clean.

8. Store remaining batter in a covered bowl in your fridge for up to at least one week.

(This makes a very large bowl; you could totally cut the recipe in half, but I like to have the extras in my fridge! Also, my sister will sometimes use all All Bran instead of using that and Bran Flakes. You could do the same with just bran flakes as well. The All Bran way is going to give you a darker muffin, and the Bran Flake way will give you a lighter muffin. Either way, delicious!)

Rise and Shine!

I love breakfast!

My mom made us a hot breakfast almost every morning when I was growing up. My dad helped occasionally too. On the mornings cereal was served, I usually ate leftovers from dinner. I've never been a huge fan of cereal. So, when my children come to my side of the bed in the morning and say they are hungry, and I say how about some biscuits, pancakes, etc., and they reply, "Cereal!" it's almost blasphemous! It's my own fault, I went on a huge breakfast making vacation, and for quite some time they only ate cereal. I've really been trying to do better, and now when I propose to my kids that we have muffins, eggs, pancakes, etc. for breakfast, my son responds with, "Cereal AND muffins!"

I don't know how my mom did it! It is hard to muster up the energy to make breakfast in the mornings. One thing that has helped me is that I've been trying to make breakfasts that I can prepare ahead of time, and either bake or warm up in the mornings.

So, this week this blog is devoted to Make Ahead Breakfast Foods, to help us all rise and shine!!

(I'll get back to the creating part of this blog when my work room is clean and organized...

almost there...)