Sugar High Friday #1 - Chocolate Bread Pudding with White Chocolate Sherbet

Jennifer at Domestic Goddess has proposed yet another communal cooking and blogging event – Sugar High Fridays: the International Sweet-Tooth Blogging Extravaganza or SHF:ISTBE for short (actually, either one is a mouthful!) Mmm…sweets…sign me up!

The theme for this first Sugar High Friday is white chocolate. I have nibbled on white chocolate on occasion, but I don’t think I’ve ever cooked with it before. I couldn’t get my imagination in gear for this event, so I searched the Food Network website and found a recipe from Gale Gand for Chocolate Bread Pudding with White Chocolate Sherbet. At first I planned to make only the sherbet, but that wouldn’t have been terribly photogenic, so I racked my brain trying to think of something that would complement the sherbet both in terms of flavor and visually. Nothing seemed quite right. Finally, I acknowledged to myself that what I wanted was REAL chocolate. To be specific, I wanted that chocolate bread pudding that was included in the recipe.

I made a deal with myself – I would make the bread pudding, but I would have to cut the recipe down to a single serving. For most of the ingredients I simply divided the amount called for by 6. For the bread I used 1 ½ slices of Pepperidge Farm white bread – though if I were to do this again I would increase that to 2 slices. I happened to have some leftover heavy cream, which I used, but I substituted skim milk for the half-and-half. I think another time I would use all milk.

For the sherbet I used El Rey Icoa White Chocolate, which is touted as being “Venezuelan single bean origin”. The sherbet couldn’t have been easier – however the melted chocolate seemed to float to the top of the mixture as it chilled in the refrigerator. When I was ready to freeze it, there was a soft skin on top. Fortunately, it dissolved back into the mixture when I stirred it, and when I strained the mixture there were no lumps.

I ate the bread pudding just slightly warm with a scoop of the white chocolate sherbet. It was heaven, but oh so rich. I should have split the bread pudding into two servings, and next time I would, but I couldn’t stop myself. Just in case you haven’t looked at the recipe yet, not only does it have chocolate, cream, and eggs in it, it also has vanilla bean (which I recently realized is just as addictive as chocolate) and dried cherries. Topping it with white chocolate sherbet was overkill, but I’m not complaining. The sherbet was wonderful – the first bite was just like biting into a white chocolate bar, only cold, and wet, and with more of that lovely vanilla bean.

I went to bed with a heavy stomach but a happy heart. When’s the next Sugar High Friday?