Beet Bread Pudding - Crazy Ingredient Challenge

When beets and eggs were announced as this month's Crazy Ingredient Challenge, I was quite excited. I had a list of things that I wanted to do. A marbled ginger beet cake (did it but didn't photograph it), a stuffed bread (still going to make it), and beet egg rolls.

I actually made the egg rolls first. I added beet puree to the egg roll wrappers and then wrapped then in a shredded beets and carrots filling. I loved the beautiful pink hue of the egg roll wrappers. However, when I baked them, they had changed from a beautiful pink to a muddy brownish-pink.

Why beets? Why? Why do you always do that to me? I made a beet swirl bread some months ago and the pink dough had also changed to brown after baking. I figured it was chemistry at work but I wasn't sure just how to slow the change. I also couldn't figure out how some persons did nothing special to their loaves yet they remained pink. I suspected that it had to do with the amount of time that I left my sourdough bread to rise.

After the egg rolls, I decided to work on a bread pudding. I thought that I would add some orange juice to the custard to make it a bit acidic and hopefully slow the chemical reaction that changes my beets. This bread pudding was good. Really, really good. I usually don't like bread pudding but I loved this. There are definitely some areas that are more brown than I like. But that is probably mainly because my bread got a little extra toasty. You don't get a strong beet flavour in these. You can tell there's a hint of something. But beets are really added colour and extra fibre to this dish.

Beet Bread Pudding  

Ingredients

4 - 5 cups of stale bread
3 cups of milk

2 eggs
1 cup pureed beets
3/4 cup  sugar (I used half brown and half granulated)
1/4 cup rum
1/4 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions 

Cut the bread into 1/2 inch cubes. If the bread is not stale, toast in a 200 degree oven for a few minutes. Don't leave them too long! Place the cubes into a greased 9" x 5" loaf pan or pan of similar volume.

Blend milk, eggs, beets, sugar, rum, orange juice, cinnamon and nutmeg and pour over bread cubes. Let sit until the custard has been absorbed. The amount of time this takes depends on how dry your bread is. It could take as little as an hour.. You can also refrigerate overnight.

Bake in a 350 F oven for 50 minutes.

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