So much for my two articles a day!
I spend the night rolling around my bed in pain and discomfort. The temperature was about 36 degrees Celsius and my God, what a night. On top of that, my mind went crazy thinking all kinds of stuff related to my old job because Tan Tan Taaaan I'm still on duttie! But more of that in another post (not today of course). Let's begin with todays article: Bread Cake-Venezuelan Style.
One of the most tasty signature dishes Venezuela has to offer is the Bread Cake. With European roots, the Venezuelan Bread Cake varies substantially in the way it is made and of course in its ingredients, which may also vary according to the region of the country where it is prepared, but bassicly has: Old Bread, Milk, Eggs, Sugar, White Cheese (not always), Vanilla and Raisins.
As a kid, I didn't like it very much; my parents, whenever they bought it always offered us but I always said no for two reasons:
First: I didn't liked the way it looked.
The place where they sold it here in my town was an old bakery very famous among it's citizens, and there they sold every traditional bread and dessert you could imagine. But my parents bought aways my least favorite: the Bread Cake and the Majarete (a Venezuelan dessert made with corn flour, papelon and coconut) which had a grayish kind of colour that I thought, little and ignorant, that it was because it was bad. The Bread Cake also had a similar colour but the most hated part of it was the raisins, yuck!
Second: the idea of old bread with sugar didn't went well with me.
What's the main ingredient? Old Bread! So, as a kid, I always thought that if it's old, we shouldn't eat it, as simple as that. There's a reason why we don't eat it normaly as bread, why oh why would you mix it with other stuff just not to lose it? Haha, that was my reasoning at the time, and just because of that, my parents didn't forced me to eat it or anything.
My change of heart
At the age 22, living in Caracas, my friends and I were spending the day with one of their families, and for dessert guess what? Bread Cake! But very much to my surprise, this one wasn't that bad. I thought that maybe it's like veggies: when you're a kid you don't like broccoli and stuff, but as you get older you get the hang of it and eat it without complaint (not my case, I've always liked broccoli). So, that year I came back home for a 2 week's vacation and as I was telling the story my dad craved Bread Cake, and after a discussion about who would make it he decided to make it himself.
He started with a very big bowl and 4 liters of milk since we had saved about 1 kilo of bread just to make this. When it was soft he then put it in batches in the blender with sugar and eggs, two eggs at a time, and when that was done, he poured 2 cans of condensed milk and vanilla extract, and of course, no raisins. It was going to be a massive cake!
Wait! The caramel! He took the cake pan and placed it directly into the stove, poured sugar and water and made the caramel! I had to fix it in the way hahaha the cake pan was to big for the burner.
After all that was done, that cake went into the oven for at least 2 hours, and my dad was anxious because at one point we all thought that it was a massive disaster. It was not. The bread had actually separated from the custard and we ended up with a two layer cake that was heaven on earth. Since that day, my dad always was in charge of making that cake and it was a hit amongst family and friends.
First one without him
Five days ago, on a rainy day, I decided to make one, but more close to the original recipe, since I didn't had that much bread, only one egg, no condensed milk and most important, no blender. But still, I wanted Bread Cake so I made Bread Cake. I followed the same procedure for the caramel, I placed the cake pan into the stove and the result is there to see. As for the other stuff, my sister sifted the already moist bread through a strainer to break it apart as much as she could, and I mixed everything together, and even I added rum macerated raisins that I have leftover from last year's Christmas Cake.
It took about an hour to bake compleatly but it was good. My mom made a Lemomgrass Tea and the three of us sat to enjoy that cake. Such wounderful memories around something so simple yet, filled with satisfaction and most important, love.
Thank's for reading me!
✨✨Blessings✨✨
@rebeysa85 ❤️❤️
That looks delicious and worth it!