Pudding

It was on a visit to La Mozza that I discovered this simple but elegant dessert, budino alla salvia—sweet sage pudding. Fresh sage has always been one of my favorite herbs. We grow it in the garden all summer, and pot the plants and keep them in the sunroom in winter. I use salvia leaves in all kinds of savory dishes, from pasta sauces to roasts—and now I use them in desserts too. To keep its assertive flavor in check, I infuse the custard with sage, then strain out the leaves. Serve the pudding chilled—plain, or topped with a dollop of whipped cream or crème fraîche, or with a biscotto or cookie (such as Fregolotta, page 122).

I used the idea of the delicious brittle caramel topping that defines a crème brûlée on this bread pudding simply because I love it! You will need a propane or butane torch to caramelize the sugar that will top the delicious layers of toasted buttery bread with fresh mango held together by a fragrant custard. The sweet and sour flavors of the sauce go wonderfully with the richness of the custard and heighten the freshness of the sweet yellow fruit.

Capirotada is Mexico’s version of bread pudding and is traditionally served during Semana Santa (Lent). It is made with day-old crusty bread that is lightly fried and layered or topped with various ingredients, such as raisins, peanuts, coconut, tomato, or cheese, and baked with sweetened milk or piloncillo syrup. I had the good fortune to stumble upon this incredible bread pudding in Tlaxcala. Cecilia and I met through my dad and immediately sparked a friendship. She told me her mom’s recipe was the best capirotada ever and that it had to be in the book. She was so right! I visited her mother’s home, where I stayed and cooked for a few days. I had never met her before but was warmly welcomed by her with kindness and sweetness. The day after we prepared this unusual bread pudding (originally from Jalisco), the sweet aroma of fragrant guavas and piloncillo lingered in the air as we enjoyed a slice for breakfast with a delicious glass of cold raw milk.

This is probably one of the most well-known Mexican desserts, even though it is believed to have Middle Eastern/Persian origins and is found throughout the world in many variations, such as coconut, almond, and orange. The heavy cream gives it a rich mouthfeel and reminds me of the raw milk found in Mexico. This dish is adapted from an old recipe I found in a cookbook without any date or author.

PAT Gina would happily eat cashew brittle any time of day or night. She calls it “a crunch of heaven.” When I’m in the doghouse, this is usually what gets me back in my bed and off the sofa. So, fellows, if you are like me and never know the right gift to purchase for your wife or girlfriend, make this fantastic dessert (featuring a smooth and buttery pudding to dip the brittle into) and she will forget all about whatever mistake you may have made (or wrongheaded gift you may have bought). GINA This butterscotch-pudding recipe is very special to me. Growing up, I was always fidgety (especially in church). So my mom and my great-great-grandmother (Mama Callie) would always give me butterscotch candies to keep me still. To this day, I go all soft and quiet when I taste its buttery, rich, and smooth flavor. But the cashew brittle has a story to go with it, too. When I was pregnant with Shelbi, brittle was the only quick fix for my cravings. Pat would buy it by the pound; I’m sure people thought he was crazy, but at the time he didn’t know how to make it. We finally made it on the show as a tribute to that crazy time in our lives. Combining these two favorite flavors, with so much meaning and good memories behind them, is my version of sweet, salty, smooth, and crunchy heaven. This is as good as Christmas morning—new-shoes-and-a-handbag happy.

Here we go back to New Orleans again, with Bourbon Street flair. Southern bourbon-soaked brioche bread makes a hearty Creole-style dessert.

There are fruit people, and there are chocolate people. Even chocolate people will lick their plates clean when presented with a refreshing, lemony panna cotta strewn with wine-steeped peaches. Panna cotta makes a nice spring and summertime dessert because it’s not so rich that you leave the table feeling stuffed, and the lemon verbena adds a welcome, herbaceous tang. This dish is perfect for company because the panna cotta must be made ahead, and the peaches “cook” while coming to room temperature.

This simple panna cotta is all about the tangy flavor of creamy buttermilk topped with a sweet-tart spoonful or two of bright red balsamic-glazed strawberries.

Banana pudding is such a Southern classic that I knew I had to include a recipe for it. At the same time, I wanted to give it a bit of a modern twist, and that’s how I came up with Banana Pudding Sliders. You have to learn the rules before you can break them, so here’s my favorite recipe for classic banana pudding—spiked with rum, layered with bananas and vanilla wafers, and crowned with meringue—followed by those sliders I dreamed up.

Spoon bread is like a cross between grits and cornbread, with a lovely, dense, puddinglike texture set off by cornmeal’s fine grain. I don’t need an excuse to bring sweet potatoes into the mix—I’ve been known to add them to just about everything—but in this case they reinforce the silky texture of the spoon bread in addition to adding their characteristic orange color and mild, sweet flavor.

This is a fluffy eggless rice pudding scented with sherry and almonds. My mom usually serves it with fresh raspberries, which is the perfect choice when they’re in season. But I like it all year round, so I like to make a sauce with dried cherries, which have a similar sweet-tart quality. It is lovely served in elegant stemmed glasses with the sauce spooned over the top. My mom still makes this pudding every year for my birthday. Thanks, Mom!

As almost any southerner will confirm, you can’t underestimate the allure of a warm, moist spoon bread. Sometimes the desire for it is downright urgent. Take my first recollection of the dish: when I was five years old, I invited one of my girlfriends to spend the night, and she woke up in the middle of the night wailing for spoon bread. My parents ended up having to take her home, as she would not be consoled. I can relate to the craving. When Hurricane Katrina forced us to evacuate to Jackson, I had the good sense to throw a pork roast in a cooler. Our first night in exile, we had dinner with our in-laws, and my mom made her spoon bread—served with the pork roast, it was a nice taste of home. My mom’s recipe, the one I grew up on (but never demanded at the home of my friends), is simple and delicious. At Bayona we couldn’t resist jazzing up her version to go alongside our grilled double-cut pork chops—a match made in heaven!

I created this soufflé for a magazine article about Thanksgiving in New Orleans. I wanted a side dish that was seasonal and distinctly southern—and this filled the bill. Imagine how nice it would look on your table in your prettiest casserole or soufflé dish. This soufflé dresses up a simple roast chicken or pork loin. But I’d encourage you to try it with Roasted Duckling with Orange-Cane Syrup Sauce (p. 262).

This recipe, which is as easy as one, two, three, is great for that late-night sweet tooth because it’s so quick to make. We tried it out with every kind of nondairy milk possible and they all worked, but this was our favorite.

I love bread pudding, but making it without any dairy was a bit of a challenge. After quite a few attempts, we finally got it. This version is not too sweet, and the combination of almond milk and raspberries gives it an excellent flavor.

A great do-ahead dessert for a large crowd. Although I make it most often with fresh peaches, the recipe works with just about any fruit-nut combo you can dream up, including fresh berries and hazelnuts, fresh pears and almonds, bananas and pecans, or even craisins or raisins and pecans.

There’s really nothing quite like tapioca pudding to take me back to childhood, when I would eat those plastic cups of the store-bought variety. Of course, homemade is so much better, and it’s really not difficult to make. It just requires a little patience and some stirring. I like to make a few cups at a time, eat one (or, okay, two or three). Then, before things get really out of control, I portion the rest into 1/2-cup ramekins and store them in the freezer. To take it over the top, I sprinkle just a touch of one of my favorite aromatic spices, cardamom, on top, along with some sugar, and torch the top to get that crackly brûléed effect.

In the fall of 2008, Ssäm Bar needed a seasonal dessert, and Concord grapes were on the brain. Best man I know suggested I do a take on a pb & j, but my way, using techniques and perhaps a flavor that made sense but was unexpected. I chose the path of a panna cotta, made with milk steeped with the flavor of a saltine cracker: salty and soda-y—a poor man’s pb & j. People were going to love it or hate it. And that was perfectly fine with me, because I loved it, though the saltine milk is not for wussies.

Generally speaking, you only need two ingredients to make a delicious panna cotta: flavored milk and gelatin. Salt and light brown sugar are added to the cereal milk in this recipe to deepen and sharpen the flavor of the panna cotta. The secret to a profesh panna cotta is just the right amount of gelatin: Just enough to hold it together. As little as possible, so that the second the panna cotta hits your mouth, it transforms into a silky river of flavored cream. So little that you wonder how the dessert held its shape in the first place. Serve the panna cotta with fresh fruit and/or Cornflake Crunch (page 51). Or layer it with Banana Cream (page 91) and Hazelnut Crunch (page 185).