Chocolate bread pudding from The Dessert Truck
Holiday season is upon us. Halloween is just a few weeks away, but if you are anxious, there's something before super-duper candy day. Tomorrow is Sweetest Day. Apparently this is big in the Mid-West and Jonathan, who lives in Chicago, told me about this. I'm not sure how I'll celebrate it tomorrow, but I have a good idea... Yesterday, the celebration got started earlier when I made another trip to the Dessert Truck.
The Dessert Truck was involved in a Throwdown with Bobby Flay earlier this week. There's some controversy about who won the throwdown because they filmed in Union Square and if you walked by you could have figured out who won. Eater.com supposedly knows the winner and the proprietors of The Dessert Truck would prefer it to remain unknown. See, the longer it remains unknown, the longer the show's results stays in the spotlight. From the comments gathered around the web, I think The Dessert Truck guys won. I think that show is kind of like Iron Chef America. You could find out who wins and still watch it and enjoy it. Since most of the time viewers cannot actually taste the food, the usual response at the end of the show is, "Oh. Ok."
The item at the heart of the throwdown was their Chocolate Bread Pudding. I'm not sure actually what makes a pudding a bread pudding... maybe it's bread with chocolate pudding or chocolate bread with pudding... I don't know, but it's delicious. The put vanilla creme anglaise on top. It didn't taste super vanilla-y but that didn't matter because the pudding was very chocolatey. You know the instant pudding you get sometimes lacks a strong chocolatey flavor? And maybe I don't know anything about chocolate pudding and what should be considered 'good', but I can see chocolate pudding from my front porch and it's only separated by a narrow maritime border...
Anyway... one of the specials at The Dessert Truck right now is their Pumpkin Custard with meringue and caramelized pecans. The custard was a light and delicate version of what you might find in a pumpkin pie. The meringue looks kind of like marshmallows actually and it paired well with the custard. Caramelized pecans were a nice touch as they provided a welcoming crunch to the dessert.
The Dessert Truck will be competing in the Dessert portion of the Vendy Awards this weekend. Tickets are $80 and are tax deductible. The Vendy's are a celebration of street food and they actually support a great cause. From their website: "The Vendy Awards is a fundraiser to support the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides a voice for the thousands of people who sell food and merchandise on the streets of our city."
Oh and of course, if you still want a chance to win a Food in Mouth t-shirt, you can enter here at the bottom in the comments section. Odds are still pretty good if you want to enter!
Ahhhh I love bread & butter puddings!!! I think all bread puddings are meant to be made with slices of bread (or croissants) that's soaked in some combination of egg, cream, milk etc etc. Once baked, its consistency would no longer seem like slices of bread but just warm, gooey, and pudding-y. I've had some where you can't tell that they were once bread at all!!!! Whilst other prefer it to still look like bread on top, but pudding on the inside.
I'm guessing yours was made like that too, just chocolate was added in the soaking process (there are also bread puddings made with pain au chocolat... but that's a different story :))
Sorry long post! I got over-excited. I always love it with hot vanilla custard. glad you enjoyed it!
Veronica
October 17, 2008 10:28 pm
Ya know, the name alone has made me avoid bread pudding for ages. I'm not sure I like that idea. But that chocolate bread pudding might be enough to make me change that... (I also am not huge on sweets, so whatevs also) hehe
Yvo
October 20, 2008 12:03 pm
The bread pudding was too sweet for me, I like the chocolate peanut butter mousse the best! And I'm not even much of a peanut butter fan lols
wonders
October 20, 2008 12:36 pm
Veronica,
Oooh so they're not supposed to seem like they have bread! Because this one really did not seem like that. A lot of the times in pictures, it looks like soaked bread... this was definitely more like pudding.
Yvo,
This was definitely more pudding than bread. Because I know what you mean, sometimes bread pudding looks like... bread. And why would I want to eat bread for dessert? But this is good bread pudding.
wonders,
Oooh yes I still love the chocolate pb mousse! I guess my taste buds are immune to super sweetness because it has to be CRAZY before I call it too sweet. This was very chocolatey so it balanced out.
Danny
October 21, 2008 10:18 pm
There are actually few things better than Dessert Truck's chocolate bread pudding. God, I love it.
Sweet Freak
October 28, 2008 3:21 pm