Blog Archives
ffwd: coupetade
This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is a dried-fruit-studded French toast bread pudding called coupetade. On many fronts, there was no way that Howard was going to try this one, so I didn’t even consider trying to adapt it to his tastes. The only concession I made was to halve the recipe.
I’m indifferent to French toast, but I adore bread pudding. This was a new take on it that I’d never seen. First of all, you don’t just start with stale bread. You first make French toast out of the stale bread. Some sugar is added to the milk and egg for extra caramelization. The best French toast is made with egg bread, like brioche or challah, and that was the recommended base here as well. I didn’t make my own bread, but bought a small loaf from a favorite local bakery. The recipe calls for cooking the French toast in a sea of butter, but after my recent greasy pancake experience, I opted to lightly coat my electric griddle with some butter and cook the French toast as I would for breakfast.
The French toast is cut into smaller pieces and placed in a baking dish and garnished generously with dried fruit. My dried fruit wasn’t as moist or plump as it should have been, so I applied a tip that I’ve picked up over the years from the Dorista crew.
A bit of liquor can only improve things.
While the French toast cooked, I soaked dried apricots and dried cherries is some warm kirsch, both to plump up the fruit and to give the coupetade an extra kick.
A simple custard mixture of eggs, sugar, milk, and vanilla is poured over the bread and fruit and baked in a water bath for an hour.
This dish can be served warm or cold. Traditionally, the French eat it cold, but I couldn’t wait and ate it warm.
I really enjoyed this. It is perfect comfort food! The creamy bread and custard contrasted nicely with the slightly tart and chewy fruit bits. You could use prunes, raisin, or dried cranberries, whatever happens to be on hand. Any non-savory bread would work too (I can’t quite imagine seeds in this one.) Even though I might be eating alone, I would definitely make this one again.
My sister Jane AND her family are huge bread pudding fans, so, Jane, make this one! You’ll love it.
We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To read about other interpretations of coupetade, check out the other French Fridays with Dorie bloggers’ posts here.
ffwd: creamy mushrooms & eggs
For some reason, I kept thinking this week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie was called creamy eggs and mushrooms, and I had visions of scrambled eggs with mushrooms. I found the idea appealing, but not necessarily interesting. When I looked more closely to write out the grocery list, I was delighted to find I was wrong. The recipe is actually for creamy mushrooms and eggs, which are poached, not scrambled.
What a perfect dish for brunch! The mushrooms are sautéed with shallots, and then cream is added and simmered to thicken before finishing with fresh herbs. The sauce is spooned over toast and topped with a poached egg.
This recipe was a team effort. I made the sauce while Howard poached the eggs. Dorie recommends challah or brioche, but any kind of toast would do. I went with the egg bread theme and bought egg sandwich rolls at the grocery store because they didn’t have any loaves of the recommended bread. Slices from a loaf would have presented better because the top of the roll didn’t sit flat on the plate, though it still tasted great.
The two of us shared the full recipe, and I know we’ll be making this again, for ourselves or guests.
The sauce could definitely be repurposed for dinner. I recently concocted a similar sauce with a generous dose of garlic and some Madeira and served it over leek and fennel ravioli. It was also delicious. The flavors of mushrooms and cream are a winning combination!
We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
To see what other Doristas thought of this recipe, check out their posts here.
A Plateful of Happiness 