breakfast for dessert

Ashlynn going for the pudding!

I didn't realize how often I turn a breakfast foods into dessert until I sat back and thought about the most recent three desserts I made.  Coffee vanilla bean ice cream, bacon and browned butter chocolate chip cookies and blueberry white chocolate bread pudding.  Coffee-bacon-eggs.  Sounds like breakfast to me!  But just as delicious, possibly more so, as dessert.  Are you ready for this?

Coffee Vanilla ice cream.
Most coffee ice creams ask you to dissolve espresso powder into your liquid mixture.  The steeping method by David Lebovitz is really the only way to make amazingly flavorful coffee ice cream with quality coffee beans.  Using sub-par espresso powder in the birthplace of coffee seams ridiculous.

2 cups quality whole bean coffee beans
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 whole vanilla bean (or extract)
2 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar

In the top of a double boiler pour the cream and milk and coffee beans.  Add the vanilla bean after scraping out the bean paste and adding it to the cream mixture.  Cook over medium heat until the cream is hot to touch. Remove, stir and cover for 2 hours letting the coffee beans steep in the cream mixture.

While the cream is steeping, bet two eggs until foamy.  Add the sugar a quarter of a cup at a time.  Whisking with each addition.  When the cream mixture has steeped for 2 hours, strain the mixture into the egg/sugar mixture.  Whisk to combine and refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours.  Freeze in your ice cream maker and add mini chocolate chips after churned.

Bacon browned butter chocolate chip cookies (the ultimate cookie)
6 slices bacon
2 Tbsp brown sugar for bacon rub
1 cup plus 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar (minus 1 Tbsp for high altitude)
2 eggs plus one yolk
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
3 cups flour (add 3 Tbsp for high altitude)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda (1/4 tsp for high altitude)
2 cups chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Lay bacon out on a foil lined baking sheet.  Rub a small amount of brown sugar on each strip of bacon and bake until crispy about 10 minutes.  Remove and cool then crumble with hands or a food processor.  Set aside.

Brown the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  The butter will melt and sizzle and pop.  It will bubble.  As the bubbling ceases the butter will start to foam.  Stir to watch the liquid butter underneath turn from a yellow liquid to a light brown color.  The butter will smell nutty.  Remove and pour in a heat safe measuring cup.  The butter should now be 8 ounces or 1 cup of liquid butter.  Let cool.

In a stand mixer combine the browned butter and sugars.  Add the eggs and yolk one at a time, mixing after each one.  Add the vanilla.  In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients and add it to the stand mixer bowl with sugar mixture.  Combine and add chocolate chips and crumbled bacon.  Form 18-20 balls of dough and place on a cookie sheet.  Refrigerate  for 20 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake cookies for 16-18 minutes.

Blueberry white chocolate bread pudding with white chocolate rum sauce
2 1/2 cups torn bread pieces
1 cup dried or fresh blueberries (cranberries/cherries/raisins)
1 cup white chocolate chips
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
dash salt
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a 8x8 inch square baking dish or a similar sized casserole pan place the bread, berries and white chocolate chips.  In a separate bowl mix the remaining ingredients.  Make sure you whisk the eggs well.  Pour mixture over the bread.  Bake in a water bath for 50-60 minutes.  For the first 30 minutes bake with foil covering the pan.  Then remove and allow the bread pudding to cook uncovered.  Bread pudding will still be soft and gooey in the very middle but the eggs will have cooked.  No one likes dry bread pudding but you also don't want it too runny.

White chocolate rum sauce.
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
3/4 cup cream
1 Tbsp dark rum

Warm the cream in the microwave and then pour over the white chocolate chips.  Allow the chips to melt and whisk together.  Add the rum and stir.  Serve warm or room temperature with the bread pudding.

This sauce turns a rustic bread pudding into the sort of dessert you can serve for a dinner party. It's especially nice poured around the bread pudding in a slightly recessed plate so pudding sits in a little pool.