Joy the Baker

Let me lay out some facts for you:

My bed has an electric blanket on it this winter.  My fears of spontaneous combustion are usurped by my complete inability to actually get out of my warm bed.  

Yes… I’m totally writing this from bed.  Try and stop me.  This cozy just won’t quit. 

I have exactly zero interest in turning on my oven for the next week… mostly because my oven isn’t in arms length of my bed.  I really don’t want to get out of bed.  

Yes… I’m talking a lot about my bed right now.  Maybe I’m obsessed.  Maybe this is unhealthy.

But!  There is one reason I’m getting out of bed tomorrow.  Vacation.  Holy hell!  I’m going on vacation!  I’m going to a gorgeous spa/ bed and breakfast situation in San Luis Obispo… all by myself.  There’s a bathtub.  Not just any bathtub… but a soaking tub… next to a fireplace.  Oh.  My.  God.  I only plan on leaving that soaking tub in an extreme prune state.  

If you’re in San Luis Obispo and you think you can lure me out of my soaking tub… we should totally have lunch!

Before all the soaking begins… here’s a deep purple Blackberry Granita.  I suggest eating in in bed, under the covers, while watching your third Netflix romantic comedy.  Don’t worry.  No judgements.  This granita just tastes better that way.  

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I’ve been struggling for the past few hours with what to tell you in conjunction with these Blackberry Pie Bars.

I thought maybe we could talk about how I’m still totally dragging my feet about going to my ten year high school reunion.  No… that’s been done.  Boring.

Maybe we could talk about how I sat around a campfire with Andrea Zuckerman… a character from that show Beverly Hills 90210, but that was actually just a dream I had last night.  Not real.

We could chat about the weather?  Seen any good movies lately?

No?  Ok… let’s not fight this.

Let’s get on to the bars.  They’re good.  Really good.  Good enough to not need a silly introduction.

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Bread pudding exists in the sweet space between breakfast and dessert.  With all of the milk in the recipe, bread pudding feels like eating the most ridiculously rich breakfast cereal.  I suppose for most people, it’s a bonafide dessert.  Perhaps I’m just trying to find as many ways as possible to eat dessert for breakfast.

I’ll admit, I only recently warmed up to bread pudding.  My Dad absolutely loves the stuff, so I was inspired to create my own.  I think I had this conception that bread pudding was simply soggy bread mixed with cinnamon, milk and raisins.  Not so!  This dish can be made with as many combinations as you can dream up.  With this recipe, I wrestled my preconceived notions of bread pudding to the ground.  I decided to combine bread pudding and cobbler.  I know… pretty awesome!   Now we’re getting into the realm of respectable breakfasts… or desserts.

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