Dark Chocolate + Stout Bread Pudding

Yes, I put beer in it.  

Bread + Chocolate + Beer 

Some of the best desserts can fulfill both your guilty pleasure breakfast needs, as well as your midnight "drunk food" needs.  This is one of them.  It's hearty, nutty, slightly sweet, with a hint of bitterness from the dark chocolate.  I'd recommend serving this while its still warm from the oven on a cold night, with a fresh scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  

Bread pudding gets a bad wrap in most places that aren't New Orleans.  People seem to think of it as simple, and not exciting.  However, New Orleanians know how to make anything exciting.  Whether its a thick and buttery rum sauce, or a generous scoop of ice cream, or, I don't know... chocolate and beer, some of the most incredible desserts I've had in this city have been bread pudding.  So, grab a few loaves of some stale bread and a six pack of stout, put on something comfortable, and make this cozy as hell dessert.  

This recipe uses some great local products, including Irish Channel Stout from Nola Brewery and baguettes from Tartine.   

What:

  • 1.5 baguettes, a few days old (I used 2 ft long baguettes, for a total of 3 ft)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
  • 6 large eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup melted butter, cooled
  • 1 t vanilla 
  • 1 pint heavy cream
  • 1 cup dark chocolate (I used 70%), chopped
  • 2 pints of stout beer

How:

  1. Preheat oven to 325*
  2. Tear bread into bite-sized chunks and place in a large mixing bowl
  3. Add in sugar, cocoa, eggs, vanilla, 1/2 cup butter, 1 3/4 cup heavy cream, 1 pint of stout and walnuts and mix to combine
  4. Press mixture into a 9 x 13 pan and bake for 40 minutes or until firm and slightly crispy on top
  5. In a saucepan, bring remaining pint of stout to boil and reduce heat to low, allowing to simmer for 40 minutes until reduced by more than half
  6. Add 1/2 cup butter and 2 T heavy cream and remove from heat
  7. Stir dark chocolate into beer mixture and set aside to cool
  8. Once bread pudding has been removed from oven and cooled slightly, poor chocolate sauce on top
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