Bourbon bread pudding with toasted peelcorn oat streusel, apple compote, and caramel ice cream ($7)

We've always got bread pudding on the menu during the cold months, but I do like to change it up a bit with the seasons. With our apple preservation projects wrapping up for the yearDecember is usually about the time we pour even more bourbon into our batter and break out the apple compote, especially since spples just seem to taste better this time of year.

The pudding itself is fairly straightforward - our house-baked Sally Lunn is mixed with Moore Family Farm eggs, Kilgus cream, and a dizzying amount of Benchmark bourbon, plus a hint of Ceylon cinnamon. We make a pretty eggy, sticky pudding. The streusel comes about because I'm first of all looking for a texture and second I love the sandy texture the peelcorn oat flour gives to the buttery mix. It's a pretty simple oat flour/butter/brown sugar spiced with coriander (absolutely the best spice with oats) and toasted on a silpat in a low oven until crispy and crumbly. The apple compote is very simply made by cooking down Tolman Sweeting apples from Wisconsin with just a little sugar, plus some lemon and verjus to spike the citric and malic acid content, which really makes the apple flavor pop and cut through some of the richer components it's paired with. Finally, the caramel ice cream is just because. We all love caramel apples of course and the pairing is also a slam dunk with bourbon and toasted oats. It's made by burning half the sugar in our standard ice cream recipe which consists of Kilgus Cream, Moore Farm egg yolks, sugar, and a bit of salt. Before freezing we stir in just a bit of Caudill's sorghum molasses because while sorghum has many, many aromatics in common with caramel (the process of making sorghum molasses involves caramelization of the sugars in sorghum juice as they cook down,) much of the fruity & sweet corn aromatics from good sorghum stand out when combined with caramel and a new, extra-rich caramel flavor is born, but one that is also lightened up by the sorghum's fruitiness.

Finally, for service the pudding is steamed in a bourbon syrup until piping hot and plated with the cold ice cream and other elements. This is not one to miss, in fact it's one to enjoy often.

Pairing: Cafe au lait or a good sipping bourbon

apple, farm-raised, farmer (local/regional), farmers' market, heirloom ingredient, regional favorite, sorghum, and house canning/preserving