Remember the Lime Sugar?

Here’s the fabulous recipe I promised putting it to good use.  Lime, coconut, and white chocolate bread pudding.  Elise Logan and I were working together in the kitchen again.  Her writing partner, Emily Ryan-Davis, had some bread pudding at a farmer’s market and loved it so much, she asked if we might be able to recreate it.  Of course we said yes.  How do you say no to lime, coconut, and white chocolate bread pudding?  We put our heads together and created this recipe, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but we hit it out of the park. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 ½ cups lime sugar
• 2 cups half & half
• 1 cup milk*
• ½ cup cream*
• ½ cup coconut milk
• 4 eggs
• ¼ cup finely shredded, unsweetened coconut
• 1 cup white chocolate chunks or chips
• 1 loaf challah
• ½ cup butter, softened
• ¼ cup coconut oil

*Feel free to substitute 1 ½ cups whole milk or half & half for the milk and cream.

Cut your bread into 1 inch thick slices and set it aside. 

In a bowl, measure your butter and coconut oil.  Elise decided her piles resembled little houses and gave them contrasting roofs.  Have I mentioned how much time we spend laughing when we’re together? 

Stir those until they’re thoroughly mixed together. 

Using some of that mixture, generously grease a 9x13 pan. 

Then spread a thin layer on each of your slices of bread.  You won’t use all of the coconut butter, but I can personally vouch for how great it is on toast, especially if you sprinkle on a little lime sugar.  I know, you’re thinking I’ve lost my marbles over this lime sugar stuff, but once you’ve made it, you’ll totally understand.   

Take your buttered slices of bread and cut them into chunks.

Pile the pieces somewhat haphazardly in the pan. 

Sprinkle on the white chocolate.  On the subject of white chocolate… it’s become rather difficult to find good white chocolate these days.  A high quality white chocolate will have cocoa butter as like the second ingredient.  Most of the stuff you’ll find in the grocery store is made from palm oil.  Trust me when I say it’s worth tracking down the good stuff. 

Next comes the coconut.  Just sprinkle it over the top. 

Now set that aside and we’ll start on the custard.  Crack your eggs into a large mixing bowl and add the lime sugar. 

Whisk those together thoroughly. 

Add all of the dairy stuff and the coconut milk and whisk some more.  Don't worry about the little bits of coconut milk.   

Pour that mixture over your bread.  You’ll think it’s not all going to fit in the pan, but it will.  At least, mine did. 

Press the bread down so that it all gets a chance to absorb that fabulous custard. 

Cover it and refrigerate it for at least an hour or two.  Overnight would even be fine.  When you’re ready, preheat the oven to 350°.  Uncover the bread pudding, place it on a sheet pan, and put it into the oven.  Bake it for 60 – 75 minutes.  It should be browning nicely on top and a knife inserted in the middle will come out clean.  Clear moisture on it is fine, but nothing that looks custardy.  You can see why I put it on a sheet pan. 

Allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes before serving.  I used a round cutter to cut this piece, but you can just scoop it with a spoon or cut it into squares.  Top it with freshly whipped cream, preferable sweetened with some of that leftover lime sugar, and enjoy.  It’s a perfect balance of lime, coconut, and white chocolate with a luscious creamy texture. 

What have you eaten recently that you’d like to have a recipe for? 

tillo-berry pie

They really are fruits.

If you've ever seen a cape gooseberry, you'll know where I'm going with this. They're also sometimes called 'husk cherries'. I was served one once as a garnish on a fancy dessert, and had no clue what it was, so I didn't eat it. I really should have.

Because then I'd be able to tell you how they taste compared to a tomatillo.

Yup, a tomatillo. Very closely related to the cape gooseberry, in look and in taste.

Like tomatoes, tomatillos seem to have been relegated to the realm of savoury foods. They don't have to be though. They really are kinda sweet. They've got a bit of a citrus flavour to them too. And they pair nicely with cinnamon when you put them in a pie. It comes out as kinda 'mock apple' which is good I think, because it kinda eases people into the idea that you can actually eat this thing in a sweet dish.

The trend lately with foods seems to be the addition of sweet things to savoury ones, so Recipe Guy and I (being contrary, as usual) decided that we'd take something typically savoury and make it sweet.

Tillo-Berry Pie

• about 1 pound of small tomatillos
• 3/4 c sugar
• 3 tbsp tapioca
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• double pice crust 

If you want to make your own crust, you'll need

• 2/3 c cold butter
• 2 1/2 c flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6-8 tbsp cold water

I like making my own crust, and it's really quite easy. Unlike making cakes and muffins, you want all of your pie crust ingredients nice and chilly.

Cut the cold butter into chunks about a tbsp in size, and dump in the flour and salt.

Use a pastry cutter to cut it all together until the biggest chunks of butter are about the size of peas.

Sprinkle on about 5 tbsp of ice water, and use a fork to cut the water into the flour. You don't want to "mix" this.

Mixing causes gluten to form and stretch, which is great for cakes and bread, but really the opposide of what you want for a flaky tender pastry.

Dump the very crumbly mixture out onto your rolling surface and add another tbsp or two of water.

The way I deal with pastry now is patting and folding. Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker's me! Resist the urge to do anything remotely related to kneading.

At first, the folding will be a bit weird, and not much like folding. You'll just be picking up part of the dough and putting it on top of another part, and then pressing them together. If it doesn't hold well after a couple times of doing this, sprinkle on a bit of water, and then fold a few more times.

Eventually, you'll end up with a lump that mostly sticks together after you pat it.

Cut this lump in half, set the slightly smaller half aside, and flour the other one, your surface, and your rolling pin. Check as you roll to make sure that it's not sticking.

If it is, use a knife to gently separate it from your surface, and flour both the surface and the pastry.

Roll it until it's a good couple inches in diameter bigger than your pie plate.

Use your rolling pin to help you carry it to the pie plate.

The filling is pretty simple.

Peel the pretty little paper lanterns off your tomatillos, and rinse them off.

Recipe Guy seems to have one plant that makes slightly purple tomatillos. Apparently there are varieties that are entirley purple.

Slice the tillos. Put them in a bowl.

Dump the other stuff on top.

Stir. Dump the filling into the crust.

Easy as...

The other half of your pie crust needs to be rolled out now. You can make a circle and put it on top whole (cut slits in it for steam to escape), or you can do a lattice top. A lot easier than you think and makes people say "ooo".

Roll out your other half into a rectangle, and slice it into 7 strips.

Lay 3 strips on the pie, and then fold the middle one back, and lay one of the remaining 4 across the two strips.

Switch! One comes forward, two go back.

Repeat until you run out of strips.

Press the edges of the strips to the edge of the bottom crust, and use the scraps left after cutting your strips to fill in the blank spots.

I recommend brushing the crust with a beaten egg now, rather than after it's been in the oven for 20 minutes. The egg makes is lovely and shiney, and helps its brown a bit too.

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, then turn down the heat to 350, and bake for another 30 minutes.

The early high heat helps the crust brown and crisp before the fruit starts oozing juices all over it and making it soggy. The later lower heat makes those juices bubble into tasty sweet filling.

It worked! It really worked!

I think I'd like to put a few more tomatillos in next time, and maybe less cinnamon to make it less like a mock apple and more like a tillo pie, but it really did work!

What "savoury" ingredient do you think would work well in a sweet?