Pumpkin Bread Pudding With Orange Cranberry Compote

A couple of months ago, I took on a second job working for a pastry chef who started training for her career at the age of eleven. Needless to say, she knows her craft. She's very particular and meticulous. She also has a sharp tongue. Many times, I had to hold back a retort or my tears; and every time, I was glad I did. Her criticism, no matter how harshly worded, caused me to stop and reevaluate how I do things. What makes everything bearable is that she is very willing to pass on her knowledge as well as help me with the issues I face at my pastry chef job at the restaurant. So I latch on to her like a leech and pick her brain.

"Waste not, want not" is our motto. In her pastry shop, everything is well thought out so that nothing gets wasted. Her mastery of baking techniques and theories is all well and good, but there is something to be said for being able to transform a dreaded ingredient such as prunes into a confection that everyone raves about (by soaking them in cognac then pureeing and using this puree as filling for a flaky cookie dough).

This pumpkin bread pudding was her idea. After Thanksgiving, I got stuck with ten leftover pumpkin tarts at the restaurant. She told me to stop fretting and just make bread pudding out of them. With that idea, I came up with pumpkin walnut bread pudding with orange cranberry compote. The dessert was quite a success that I continued making it weeks after I got rid of those ten tarts. Initially, I just used a custard batter (cream, eggs, and sugar) and added cut up pumpkin tarts (including the crust) and cut up bread. When all the tarts were gone, I made pumpkin pie filling and added pieces of buttery bread (croissant, brioche, even pie crust) for the bread pudding.