PERRYSBURG – Sarah Murillo sometimes thinks she was born in the wrong era.
It was her fascination with bygone years that led her to this Raspberry Bread Pudding recipe.
She wanted to fix something different for the Wood County Fair’s Cook-Off in August.
“But I also knew I wanted to do a vintage recipe,” she said.
She found the recipe for this bread pudding in the Household Discoveries & Mrs. Curtis’s Cook Book, circa 1908, and liked it as it called for raspberries.
“I’ve never heard of raspberry bread pudding,” she said.
She liked how old the recipe was and that it seemed so simple. Using modern-day cooking methods has complicated it a bit. She said she had to do research to determine what temperature to cook it at.
She said she picked up the book at a Way Library sale last spring and has since spotted it at an antique shop for a couple hundred dollars.
Her entry at the fair was the first time she had made the recipe.
“It was sink or swim. I had intended to practice but I didn’t have the time. I was actually shocked when it turned out good,” she said.
She placed third in the bread pudding category of the cook-off.
She didn’t write down how she fixed the raspberry sauce and has been trying ever since to replicate it.
“The sauce keeps ending up different each time,” she said.
Murillo used French bread for this interview and a 2-quart casserole dish. The pudding was moist and the raspberry sauce on top added a touch of tartness.
The original recipe didn’t have sugar, but Murillo added it to the pudding mixture to make it more favorable to modern-day palates.
Murillo said she learned to cook from her grandmother, Rafaela Murillo, who also liked older stuff, including songs and recipes.
Rafaela never used any measurements.
“You’d just have to remember how big her hand was,” Murillo said, mimicking a handful of sugar and a pinch of salt.
Her favorite recipe of her grandmother’s is Fideo, described as Mexican spaghetti.
She has many of her grandmother’s recipes memorized but often uses other vintage recipes.
“I do research them before making them to compare them to modern (techniques),” she said.
She said she has been baking for a long time, and that was her favorite thing to do in high school.
The 2011 Anthony Wayne High School alumna said she really started cooking after she graduated from Bowling Green State University with a degree in geography.
The Household Discoveries potion of the cookbook also had directions on how to clean carpets using gasoline, how to make makeup and soap, and how to preserve meat and vegetables.
Murillo called it a “homemaker’s Bible,” but it was her grandmother who taught her how to wash her clothes by hand.
Back to living at the wrong time, if no one wore watches, they’d never know she was late, she said.
“I am a chronically late person, and I can say I’m going to struggle all of my life,” she said.
Someday, she’d like to learn to cook on a Victorian range that is heated with wood.
Don’t even get her started on the tribulations of driving. She wondered if there’d be any road rage if people still used horses and buggies.
Raspberry Bread Pudding
Ingredients for Pudding
1/2 to 1 loaf stale white bread (French or Italian preferred)
3 eggs
2 cups milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 pint raspberries
Ingredients for Sauce
1 pint raspberries
1 cup powdered sugar
1 stick butter, softened
1 lemon, juiced
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 cup cold water
Ingredients for Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
Directions
Rip bread into quarter-size pieces before leaving out to go stale. Measure how much bread you’ll need by placing the ripped pieces in the casserole dish you’ll be using. Move bread to a large bowl and let soak in milk for 30 minutes, stirring periodically. Meanwhile, separate eggs and allow both yolks and whites to warm to room temperature.
Start on sauce by creaming together softened butter and sifted powdered sugar. Mix in one pint of raspberries and lemon juice. Place the mixture into a sauce pan and heat on medium heat until melted. Pour into a bowl and then strain back into the pan using a net strainer to catch the seeds.
Mix cold water and corn starch until dissolved. Pour into pan with sauce and heat until bubbly, stirring constantly. Keep sauce warm.
Sprinkle sugar over bread in bowl and mix. Pour heavy cream onto bread and mix. Take egg yolks and beat in mixer 2-3 minutes on high until thickened and add to bread mixture. Beat egg whites in mixer until stiff and fold into bread mixture with the second pint of raspberries. Transfer to casserole dish.
Put dish in a water bath and bake at 375F for 40-50 minutes. Check center with toothpick. Pudding is done when toothpick in clean.
Beat whipped cream ingredients until stiff.
Serve bread pudding with raspberry sauce and whipped cream.
