Caramel Croissant Pudding

This Nigella recipe, Gentle Reader, is my absolute favorite in the universe. Mainly because it has THE best accompanying video clip on her cookery show (which will make you fall in love with her completely, if you haven’t already, in which case — what’s wrong with you? are you dead?), but also because it’s fast becoming a trope in my latest novel-in-progress, showing up in poignant and funny ways. So you know I had to make it. How hard can it be? I thought.

Well, apparently I need to go to cooking school, because my caramelization abilities are even worse than my ability to photograph. Even though I did exactly what Niglla told me to. Sigh. I shall blame it on the fact that this defiled beauty was made early in the morning, when I was still in the post-Seroquel groggy haze that is my first hour of the day. Perhaps if I wore those nice silky pyjamas Nigella’s got going on in that episode, rather than my ratty T-shirt and capris, I would magically alchemize into a pro caramelizer, and redeem my pud?

Eh. Not holding my breath. What I’ve created is more likely uber-vanilla croissant pudding with a hint of caramel (far less sexy), but it’s so unbelievably fabulous that I don’t quite mind.

Bonus: Flaking croissants into a casserole dish is truly one of the loveliest mindfulness exercises ever. You have to work at it a little, thanks to the stickiness of the pastry and the way it adheres to your fingers, but it’s truly meditative. Even if said croissants are decidedly non-gluten-free. (Has anyone actually made gluten-free croissants? I would love to know.)

See this pud? It's sad. It wants to be saucy and have caramel. But you will not be sad, Gentle Reader; you will scarf it down even in its vanilla tameness.

Caramel Croissant Pudding, from Nigella Express (Hyperion, 2007)

(According to Nigella, this serves 2 “greedy” people, and should be “every Monday night’s supper.” Spot on, darlin’.)

• 2 stale croissants (mine were two days old, and decidedly not gluten-free)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons bourbon (Nigella begrudgingly recommends rum as a substitute; I had neither, and used vanilla — next time, I’d ease up, do perhaps 1 tbsp)
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 2 eggs, beaten

Preheat yer oven to tree-fiddy, but don’t give that goddamn Loch Ness monster any (more) money. (For those of you not versed in the South Park canon, this translates at “Preheat oven to 350.” For those of you who are thinking, Seriously? She worships Nigella and watches South Park?, this would be a perfect time to introduce you to the idea of dialectical thinking.)

Tear your croissants into itty-bitty pieces, in all their sticky adhering glory. When your devil dog howls and your child chatters, think nothing but “Flaking croissants, flaking croissants,” endeavoring quite valiantly not to recall that “Maaaaakin’ caaaaahpies” dude from the early-90s SNL sketch. Put your Flaky Croissant Bits (TM) into a little ovenproof dish (but not too little, lest ye risk overflow — Nigella recommends a 2-cupper).

Mindfulness, by way of decimated pastry.

Next comes the tricky bit, the part where I went Bad Wrong: Place your sugar and water in a saucepan, and “swirl [it] around a bit to dissolve the sugar” (as per Her Goddess-ness).

When I did that, it looked like this right chere:

Are we dissolved? No, I think not.

When I touched said mixture, t’were the consistency of sand. (Which freaked me out, because I have sensory issues. Help! Eww! Make it stop!) Not dissolved atall, but what could I do? It’s not as though Personal Pocket Nigella has a video tutorial on Caramelizing for Dingbats (though she right well should!).

So off we go, as my former MFA mentor used to say. Put the sand art on the hob (that’d be a burner, for my fellow Uh-mur-icans), and jack it up to medium-high. Let the pot hang out there for 3-5 minutes. No stirring, no fiddling, because, damn it, we must embrace the subtext of Nigella’s exhortation to “Keep looking, but don’t be too timid.”

Go off and crack your two eggies. (Without hyperventilating.) Return to your sand art, to find it, true to form, bubbly and possessing a “deep amber colour.” Like so:

I'm so fly, my colour has a "u" in it.

So far, so good. Slide your pan to an unheated burner, and whisk in your cream (Nigella kindly advises to “ignore all spluttering,” which is good, because it will splutter, worse than my gleeful crushtastic self does when I watch the caramel croissant pudding episode). Whisking all the while, add your bourbon (or Wuss Vanilla), milk, and eggses.

At this point, Gentle Reader, hopefully your sauce will be all sauce-y and appropriately caramel-y. Mine, however, was not. At best, it was a weak, creamy, and faint infusion of caramel, scented overpoweringly of vanilla, with the vast majority of my sand art/deep amber bubbly crusted to the bottom of my saucepan.

If this happens to you, do not, as I did, immediately grab a spoon and commence forcibly scraping. Simply view this as an opportune moment to practice radical acceptance and distress tolerance skills, and pour your mixture over your croissant bits, before stepping away. Nigella, after all, says we must let this concoction “steep” for 10 minutes.

Once you have deep-breathed and mourned the caramel for the requisite amount of time, return to your steeping slop o’goodness, and place it tenderly (for, it, too, must be mourning the loss of its caramelized potential, and wondering whether it’s worthy enough for Nigella to crawl into bed with it) in the oven.

Wait 20 minutes, mumbling to yourself that it’s just going to be Wuss Pud, even though Nigella tells you to “prepare to swoon.” When the timer goes off, search frantically for your OveGlove, only to eye the finished concoction with skepticism (That looks a little eggy . . .).

Remove such doubts from your mind, forcibly with a scraping spoon, if necessary. Take half off the mixture (which is not too eggy, and not Wuss Pud by any stretch, I assure you), and spoon it delicately into yet another Big-Arse Ikea Bowl. Scramble for a suitable place to photograph, eventually deciding upon the top of your daughter’s dresser.

And then: take a bite.

I guarantee you that it will not matter what sort of pyjamas you’re wearing, or how stellar your caramelizing skills are, or how groggy your meds or lack o’coffee have made you. You will be transported to a land of flaky, milky, flavorful bliss. It will be terribly sweet, and surprisingly satiating, so resist the urge to eat the entire casserole dish worth. Save it, perhaps, for your afternoon snack. Or your supper. Or better: your midnight snack, in bed, a la Nigella.