Mother's Day Baking and Kiva Bread Pudding

This post, again, is slightly/very late in coming. Last week, as most of you know, was mother's day. Shame on you if you forgot. I did. Kind of. At least it was in the back of my mind until the last minute - I was worried about what I would buy for Mom, and my mind kind of ignored the approaching family gathering. As such, I only remembered last minute that I would be making desserts for this gathering. Shame on me.

This is where our lovely friend, Ms. O'Connor, saves the day. You are probably getting sick of of recipes from "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey," but I am not, and because my family members are partial to these adjectives, neither are they.

In this instance, we were catering to the sweet tooth of my grandmother (Bush the Tush). I flipped through the book looking for something sweet, yummy, and relatively simple. This came in the form of the "Big Blondes." I don't think I can include the recipe below because I followed her instructions pretty exactly without much personal innovation - suffice it to say, you need to buy this book. But I do have pictures!

batter in the pan



a little sticky



tower of blondies!

Overall, these were a success. The random chunky bits in the blondies included walnuts, almonds, pecans, white chocolate chips, semisweet chocolate chips, shredded coconut, and Heath bars. No, I did not go crazy and throw everything in the pantry into the batter; Mrs. O'Connor did say to include all of these things. With a second try, I would omit the semisweet chips; I don't think their taste melded with the other flavors well. Bush the Tush didn't seem to notice. In fact, she insisted... repetitively... that she wanted to take several blondies home.

Because I never feel that one dessert is enough and because blondies do not fulfill the chocolate overload required among dessert selections, I made "Grown-Up S'Mores." These had a graham cracker crust; chocolate mousse filling with creme de cacao, kahlua, and brandy; and a marshmallow fluff meringue topping. The meringue turned out slightly burnt when I tried to stick it under the broil - note that you really have to watch it when doing this. Otherwise, use a blow-torch. Again, please buy the book - no recipe here!

folding in the whipped cream for the mousse



marshmallow fluff meringue - note: Mrs. O'Connor has a ridiculous affinity for Fluff



it's like an avalanche. a really slow avalanche that you have to move yourself.

There was not as much enthusiasm for the S'mores as for the blondies, but the overall review from the relatives was positive. I think that next time I'll add more alcohol...

Finally, this same night, I made banana walnut bread pudding with brown sugar rum sauce as a test recipe for Kiva Han brunch. I fiddled with a recipe from epicurious (banana bread pudding with rum sauce), lightening it with half and half and whole milk instead of heavy whipping cream, adding walnuts, and omitting the raisins. I'm not going to include the recipe here because I was not satisfied with the results (I need to play with it).

Here's a pic of the bread pudding:

And one of Robin at Kiva brunch:)




~*'Biz'*~