Moderately Decadent (Pumpkin) Bread Pudding

Okay. This recipe doesn’t so much use “break” as “cupcakes”, which should give you an idea of where it’s going.

Basically, the other day, I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes with pumpkin-seed butter in them (they are very tasty and brownie-like). As tends to be the case, 18 cupcakes takes a while to get through when there’s only two of you[1] which means I’ve got a good half-dozen un-iced cupcakes edging slowly towards mouldiness or staleness (or both) as we speak. They’ve still got a couple of good days left in them, I’m sure, BUT fore-planned is fore-armed, so I’m thinking of doing this:

Preheat the oven to 375F
Take 1-2 un-iced cupcakes and crumble them into a SMALL greased loaf pan.
In a small pot (over NO heat) blend together:
1 egg
1/2 C milk/cream
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C mashed pumpkin
1/4 tsp each cinnamon and cloves
1 pinch of salt

Turn the heat on under the pot and slowly (SLOWLY), whisking gently but constantly, bring the mixture up to simmering point (not boiling point – not quite) and allow it to thicken into a saucy consistency.

Pour the mess of i into the greased loaf-pan, over the crumbled cupcakes
Set the loaf pan in an oven-proof dish (like a cake pan or a casserole dish) that is filled about 1″ deep with water.
Put the whole shebang in the oven for 45 minutes (or until it smells done). In my oven this can take up to an hour-and-a-half, but my oven is ever-so-slightly broken, so…

Remove from the oven and let sit for a couple of minutes, then transfer to the fridge (or, in my case, the balcony where it’s considerably colder) in order to get everything nicely solidified.

Serve and enjoy. 😀

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] Usually, um…

Actual Magic (New Year, New You)

Playing a little bit of catch-up when it comes to the New Year New You project (as seen in my last post). This week’s prompt is all about getting through the specifically-magical tasks I laid out in my Bite-Sized Goals post.

Now… I’ve already done the Big One on that. For a given value of “big” at any rate. I updated one honey-pot and built myself a second one back on Winter Solstice. So, other than remembering to light the honey-pot candles every week, and maybe upping the glamoury a little bit (tricky to do with a burned face, I have to admit), I’m… sort of “done” on that front.

And yet… I’m not. I was talking earlier about potentially trying to get in touch with Bat and seeing if zi’s got anything to teach/tell/show me what with (a) a bat sort of Getting My Attention yesterday, and (b) the “correspondences” that seem to go along with Bat being ones that relate to both my life-at-present and to the New Year New You project in general.

So maybe that’s what I do in response to this prompt.

The trick, of course, is that I have no idea what I’m doing. The last time I put out a call to the deity-sphere in general I was basically throwing a job-description into the aether and seeing who turned up who fit the bill (or was willing to take it on). That was… a decade ago, easily, I think. Probably slightly more than that. Since that point, I’ve basically been going “Great! I’ve got my pantheon and I’m all good with that. Moving right along…” and haven’t really been putting out feelers or invitations to anyone else. So the possibility of doing so is… kind of intimidating. I… Hah, yes… I’m having a poly moment – as in polytheism. I don’t want to neglect my long-term-relationship deities to go chasing after some NRE with a fling-on-the-side, and I’m a little (a lot) leary of having a fling-on-the-side that turns into “Honeys, we need a bigger house altar…” Y’know?

So… So, not even touching on the “how would I go about doing this” part – that would most likely be a dream-related thing like doing a dream-pillow or something that Invites Communication with Spirit Guides (soooooooooooo newage, I know, but bear with me?) – I’m kind of looking to the eclectic, not just one pantheon type folks, to weigh in on how to make sure your Primary deities are happy and feeling loved when you’re about to ask someone new out on a date.

Thoughts? Help? Y/N?

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.