So I've laid a brick - now what?
I did not see a post about this so I thought I would start one. Namely what to do with your bread when it doesn't come out right. Using the strictly technical and professional term, a brick. This would have to be something beyond bread crumbs. Something you would deposit into your compost pile or trash. I'll start off with three ideas of my own. But hopefully we'll get much more and better ideas from the rest of you.
1. Make bread pudding.
2. Make pancakes.
3. Make Pappa al Pomodoro.
The first two recipes are sweet and require that the brick be cut up and soaked in milk (or water if you wish) before being used in the corresponding recipe. Pappa al Pomodoro is a famous Tuscan soup that is incredibly delicious. And is a savory recipe. Here the bread would need to be cut up and soaked in water before use.
Rudy
Last lot of mine that came out like this I binned...
I didn't want to waste more good ingredients on something whose base might not be edible!
Lynne
make French toast. If it can be crumbled, bread crumbs. If it is too hard for anything else, place it in the compost bin, the raccoon, oppossum and other little critters will feel blessed. :)
I made a classic genoise vanilla cake last year, it required 13 eggs, unedible, I tossed it into the compost pile and found that within the week the birds and my other critter friends had devoured it.
Waste not, want not. Nothing is ever wasted if it is recycled, especially, food!
;)
If the basic taste is good, and it's just the density, it could be made into stuffing (dressing in some parts of the US). Some onion, celery, dried fruit, a little broth...
Marni
Well this is the whole idea behind this thread, is to come up with recipes and methods to make sure that the follow up to the failure is a success. I'm talking about something that is beyond French toast, bread crumbs or croutons. Something that requires recooking to make edible. Marni that's a great idea. Stuffing does require recooking and thereby will rescue the ingredients.Rudy
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LOL you couldn't even slice it up, it was a TRUE brick, suitable only for building monoliths.
If you have bread that is cuttable, it is probably suitable for toasting in my book :) If it hangs around for a bit so that it is stiff around the edges, I make it into bread pudding.
Soaked bread also can be used to lighten meatballs (roughly 10% of meat weight, soaked, squeezed dry, added to the ground meat with herbs seasoning and and an egg. I also add parmesan cheese or finely chopped cheddar, which makes the meatballs most tasty) Make into little balls, fry or bake in the oven, serve with pasta and tomato sauce, or mix the pasta sauce and meatballs together, cover with bechamel sauce and bake until brown for a lovely pasticcio.
Lynne
there is nothing to hard for pread crumbs. dry bread will never go moldy there is just not enough moisture left for mold to grow. the trick is to not cover the bread with anything plastic a bread box anything. just cut or break the bread into small pieces and allow it to dry completly. if sliced to woll need to turn the slices so both sides are exposed to air. when totaly dry sometimes a week or more then make the crumbs in a foor processor or blender. if you dried the bread completely the crumbr will last for a year or more in a continer.
i can't spell it but how about thouse thouse little things in salid. or make them very thin and put them in a fry pan with some butter and cook them untill very crisp toss them in cinnimon suger and use them on ice cream with some apple topping.
or a hammer. Put the hard bread in a strong plastic bag and bash it until it crumbles.
Sorry just breadcrumbs again - my mother used to use up all old crusts by putting them on the base of the oven when it was on for something else. Then grind them up by the above method.
Another recipe - soak the bread in hot milk, add eggs, salt and pepper, grated cheese, and/or flaked tuna, some chopped onion. Bake in a greased loaf tin, serve sliced with salad.
will soften the hardest of bricks. A few inches of water in the bottom, a rack, and do it! Could end up with the beginnings of bread soup.
Bricks. ...more like a puck. I just baked one, over steamed it and goodness knows what else. It was a test roll made with just potato powder,water, and salt ...just wanted to see what the flour tasted like, and I cracked it open while still hot. I jokingly called it a semmel (kaiser roll) and when hubby found it and tried to bite it, all kinds of nice superlatives flew.
Now I've been commissioned for something just short of wonderbread. The pendulum swings.... so my advice, if you are trying to steer the family toward whole grains, hide the bricks or use them as fast as you can. Cut them up for dog biscuits, horse snacks, goat chews, fish food, bird food, wild animal treats or when all else fails, send to the Armed Forces as WMD. The local petting zoo would love your dried donation, just don't forget to write a note telling them what's in it.
Mini O
Ahh how timely. I was trying to make an old Russian bread last night that uses a lot of whole grains and sweeteners and a process I haven't seen before. It looked promising on the way in but shrunk and turned solid dark brown in the end. I must have missed something crucial in the recipe. Today I have a very solid block that defies cutting/crushing. I think I may have my daughter paint it and actually use it on that door I hung slightly out of square last year.
Eric