Friday, July 28, 2006

Cuban Bread Pudding Café con Leche Venezuelan Rum Sauce

Chocolate is made from the beans of a beautiful tropical plant with a suggestive name, Theobroma cacao - The Food of the Gods. Cacao grows in humid, warm forests around the world sheltered by a canopy of taller trees.

A mature tree will bear between twenty to forty pods a year. Each pod contains from twenty to forty almond shaped beans enveloped by a mucilaginous ivory tinged substance with a delicious tart flavor. Depending on the variety, a cacao tree will produce between one to three kilos of dried beans per year.

The Spanish conquistadors were fascinated by the hearty chocolate beverages they found in the lands of the Maya and the Aztecs. Their detailed accounts contributed to association of cacao with Mexico. Yet the birthplace of cacao is South America.

El Rey's couvertures are manufactured with the famed Carenero bean, a regional type of cacao that grows east of Caracas. Since the colonial period, the Carenero has been renowned for its complex flavor notes of fruit, flower, nut, and spice, and intense chocolate taste. The Carenero line is composed of five all-purpose presentations flavored with natural vanilla, and is complemented by our white chocolate made only with pure cacao butter:

Gran Saman Dark Chocolate 70%
Apamate Dark Chocolate 73.5%
Bucare Dark Chocolate 58.5%
Mijao Dark Chocolate 61%
Caoba Milk Chocolate 41%
ICOA White Chocolate

Cuban Bread Pudding, Café con Leche, Venezuelan Rum Sauce

Ingredients:

YIELD = one 2-inch hotel pan
SERVINGS = (36) 5 oz. portions
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT : One 18-inch by 12-inch by 2-inch hotel pan.

14 1/2 oz. Cuban or Italian bread
24 Oz. El Rey Bucare Dark 58.5% Chocolate
6 oz. butter, unsalted
6 oz. cashews
1 cup (7 oz.) black raisins
1 cup aged Venezuelan rum (or Bacardi premium Black)
5 cups milk
2 14-oz. cans sweetened condensed milk
4 cups Cuban-style Espresso (or any dark espresso)
2 tablespoons anise seed
8 cinnamon sticks
12 whole allspice berries
1 pinch of salt
10 large eggs
4 egg yolks
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons almond extract

Caramel - Yield = Caramelizes on hotel pan

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
Place sugar and water in saucepan and cook until golden caramel color. Pour into hotel pan.
Allow to set.

Instructions:

Bread Pudding

Prepare caramel coated hotel pan.

Slice bread into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes. Chop chocolate and place into a large bowl with the unsalted butter.
Chop cashews, coarsely. Presoak raisins in a bowl with rum. Set all aside.

Place milk, sweetened condensed milk, espresso, anise seed, cinnamon sticks, whole allspice berries into a pot and bring to a boil. Lower to simmer and allow to simmer/steep for approximately 10- 15 minutes.

Strain steeped milk mixture into chopped chocolate. Whisk to combine.
Whisk eggs, yolks, vanilla and almond extracts together.
Mix warm milk/chocolate mixture with eggs. Whisk eggs/milk/chocolate back into larger chocolate bowl.

Add the cubed bread, soaked raisins, and cashews to custard mixture (about 16 cups of custard mixture.)
Allow to soak for one hour or until the bread has absorbed the liquid.
Mash with a fork or potato masher to break large pieces of bread crust.
Pour into hotel pan and place into 350 degree oven for 35 minutes.

Note: The custard temperature at the time it is placed in the oven should be about 105 degrees. The temperature of the finished product should range between 175 -180 degrees.

Café con Leche Sauce: Yield = 30 fluid oz. (Serving per individual portion of pudding about two oz.)

14 fluid oz. of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup Cuban Espresso or dark coffee
1/2 cup aged Venezuelan rum (or Bacardi Premium Black)
1/2 cup heavy cream, reduced
Mix sweetened condensed milk, espresso and rum and heat in a small saucepan. Do not boil. Add heavy cream.
Stir and cool to serve.

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