Christmas Bread Pudding

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13 December 2010

Christmas Bread Pudding

Ingredients

2 loaves Raisin Cinnamon Bread
8 eggs plus 2 egg whites
2 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup sugar or vanilla sugar
2 tablespoon Madagascar vanilla
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 lemon juiced and zested
1 cup dried cherries and raisins
1/4 cup melted butter, for baking dish


For topping:
2 cups bread crumbs from crusts
Bourbon sauce, recipe follows
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 stick cold butter, cut into cubes

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove crusts from bread and reserve. Cut bread slices into cubes. In a large bowl, beat eggs well. Add milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, Grand Marnier and mix well. Add cinnamon, juice, and lemon zest. Stir in cherries and raisins. Add bread cubes and stir until well coated. Let stand 30 minutes, stirring often. If mixture is soupy, you may need to add additional slices of white bread (crusts removed.) The mixture should be wet but not soupy. Pour into buttered baking dish, dusted with sugar. Prepare topping in a food processor. Add crusts, butter and brown sugar, pulsing until mixture is crumbly. Spread evenly over top of pudding. Bake in a water bath for 50 minutes covered with foil. Remove foil and bake another 10 minutes or until brown on top. Serve with bourbon sauce.

BOURBON SAUCE:
2 egg yolks
1 stick butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup bourbon
Mix eggs, butter, and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and 1/2 cup bourbon. In top of a double boiler cook until temperature reads 165 on a thermometer. Beating constantly and being careful not to curdle eggs. Remove from heat and strain. In a mixer bowl, beat sauce until slightly cool, adding remaining bourbon a little at a time. Serve with bread pudding

Harvest Twenty Ten

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03 October 2010

How do you know when to harvest?harveston

 "We look at three things," says winemaker Rich Foster. "Sugar, PH, and most importantly the flavor of the grapes. If they taste green, the wine will taste green too. If the grapes are sweet but have no flavor complexity, then the wine will be boring. You need that depth of flavors, all the minerals. You have to pretend you are not tasting the sugar and taste for everything else. On block one, when I taste the tropical fruit, I know it's done, and we bring it in.

Why do you harvest by hand?

Rich is very passionate about that. "When you hand-pick the fruit, you know you are getting fruit, not MOG (material other than grapes, which can include some rather unsavory stuff). Mechanical harvesting also bruises the fruit, and the second you break the fruit, fermentation starts. You don't want that to begin in the field. The winemaker needs to be in control, decide what yeast to use, control temperature. We start very early and depending on the weather don't pick past 10 or 11, and then the grapes go directly in the cold room."

How did the cool summer effect the grapes this year?

"It definatley pushed the harvest a few weeks later than normal. This is not a bad thing though. In fact, as long as we don't get rain before we pick, it's a good thing. I like seeing the sugar develop slowly -- allowing for longer time on the vine to develop flavor. The heat wave in late september came at exactly the right time. We got our flavors and the heat brought the sugars up to the right level. 2010 has the potential to one of California's greatest vintages!"

The other harvest is in too

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03 October 2010

Lest I spread too much confusion, let me specify that we are not referring to the grapes, most of which are still ripening as I write, but to our bumper tomato crop, the pride of Royal Oaks' quarter acre organic vegetable garden, over three hundred pounds of gorgeous San Marzano heirloom tomatoes, a Roma type variety, perfect for canning and sauces.

2008tomatoesRoyal Oaks'  “Field to Plate” philosophy states that the tastiest food is the one raised close to your kitchen, so we raced the fresh-picked beauties to ours and made pints and pints of Royal Oaks' Pasta Sauce. Look for them in our tasting room in the coming weeks!

We also planted corn – all gone in a flash, a variety of peppers, and onions. We had hoped for squash, melons, and eggplant, but the squirrels got to those before we did. “Squirrels have got to eat too, and if it keeps them out of the grapes, I’m OK with them eating the vegetables,” quips winemaker Rich Foster. We are a winery first, after all.