Halvah Berry Bread Pudding with Tahini Drizzle

A Superb Recipe from an Outstanding Cookbook!

I am lucky enough to have a wonderful family who showers me with new cookbooks every Christmas. It has become a tradition and I spend the new year carefully combing through the books. I treat new cookbooks like novels. I start at the beginning and read everything the author has to say regarding their inspirations, experience, background, etc. Then I read through every recipe that interests me. 

I know I’ve landed a winner when almost every recipe intrigues me. And it’s also reassuring when I already own a cookbook by the same author and it has proved to be excellent. This way I know that the recipes can be trusted. Unfortunately, I’ve found there are times when a cookbook author gives their very best in their first cookbook, but then seems to run out of inspiration. Well, that is not the case with Adeena Sussman’s latest cookbook Shabbat .*

While I really liked her previous cookbook, Sababa ,* and have cooked extensively from it, I think I’m going to end up loving Shabbat * even more. I’ve now cooked 5 recipes from the new book and each one has been equally delicious, while introducing me to some new flavors and/or flavor combinations. I’m posting this recipe today because I’m able to share it with you via an online link to the recipe. I see no point in talking about a recipe if I can’t share it, but trust me when I say the other recipes I’ve made from this book have also been superb.

This is a bread pudding made with challah. I didn’t feel like baking my own challah just to use in the pudding, so I purchased a loaf from my grocery store. One of the first things that caught my attention was the addition of a Yemenite spice mix called Sweet Hawaiij. Andrea provides a recipe for it which contains dried ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and mace .* You can grind your own whole spices or use pre-ground dried spices. While whole spices produce more profound flavor, I opted for dried spices for ease. None of these spices are unknown to me, but it’s the exact combination that ended up being so lovely. 

Then there is the addition of halvah .* If you’ve never tasted it, Arab/Israeli halvah * is a confection typically made from pressed sesame seeds. It comes in different flavors and I used a vanilla sesame version. It is crumbled and added to the bread pudding along with fresh raspberries. Judging from the photo that accompanied the recipe, I could see that Adeena’s challah was topped with sesame seeds and I also detected a few pistachios, which told me she must have used a pistachio halvah. Since my challah and halvah * were plain, I sprinkled on some sesame seeds and lightly crushed pistachios. 

Cream and egg custard, sweetened with white and brown sugar; vanilla; the Sweet Haraiij spice blend, additional cinnamon, melted butter, and a little salt are then poured over the other ingredients and left to sit for at least 30 minutes, allowing the bread to fully soak. Here is where I strayed a little from the recipe as written. I’ve found that I prefer softer custards than are normally used in bread puddings, so I only used 5 eggs, rather than the 6 specified in the recipe.

Saving a third of the halvah * to be sprinkled on top right before it goes into the oven, the bread pudding baked up beautifully – puffy and nicely caramelized around the edges.
 

After letting it cool for a little while, I spooned on the tahini drizzle, which is simply a mixture of tahini, half and half, sugar, and salt. This stuff is so good I can easily imagine using it as a topping for other desserts. Not too sweet at all, just nutty and creamy and delicious.

As the old saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. And what a fantastic bread pudding this is. I have issues with many bread puddings in that they’re too firm for my liking. The ingredients are so rich that I find a block of solid bread pudding to be too much. This one is light, almost ethereal in texture. The raspberries are perfect as a foil for the richness, and the slight crunch from the sesame seeds and pistachios is delightful. The pockets of halvah provide a deep nutty flavor. Another surprise was that the refrigerated leftovers were just as light and fluffy as the warm version. I really don’t think I can adequately express how great this bread pudding is. Glorious is going to have to suffice.

I feel like I’ve struck gold with this cookbook. As I mentioned, I’ve cooked several other outstanding recipes from it and if I can find online links for any of those recipes I’ll be sharing them with you soon. But in the meantime, I can’t recommend this bread pudding more highly.