Imbolc - Time (and Dessert) of Great Potential - Pagan Song: Music for Your Magic

Happy Imbolc season! Greetings from the Crow Women’s own kitchen witch, here with another recipe from our cookbook for your Sabbat enjoyment. As we approach Imbolc, I am inspired by a song I just discovered called Imbolc – Time of Great Potential by Cernunnos Rising. In particular, these lyrics strike me as so perfect for this moment:

Time of great potential, we stand at spring’s dawn light
You brighten our horizon and bring us spring’s twilight.

Dark days behind us, bring focus this coming year
May your song weave our path and the mirror of truth be clear.
Imbolc (Time of Great Potential) from the album Wild Soul by Cernunnos Rising

Potential with dark days behind us and truth up ahead. That sounds like my kind of turning of the wheel!

It is also fitting as I bake one of my favorite desserts, a dessert of great potential, bread pudding. What I love most about bread pudding is that you can take a myriad of things lying around in your pantry like nuts, chocolate chips, or fruit you need to use up, add it to stale bread, the heels of bread you’ve been saving up in your freezer, or the way-too-dense loaf of bread you tried to bake during the pandemic, and transform it into a tasty custardy treat with the addition of milk and eggs and sweetener. The flexibility and alchemy are endless as long as you follow the basics of the recipe.

I often use maple syrup instead of sugar, or sometimes substitute apple juice for some of the milk, and I use almond milk if I’m not milking my goats at the moment. Substituting for the eggs can be a little trickier, but I’m sure if you are a vegan baker you know how. Don’t limit yourself to just your staple bread either. I have friends that have used cornbread or banana bread; get creative and use what you have. And if you aren’t craving something sweet, try making a savory version with sausage, vegetables, and/or cheese for a breakfast pudding. We in the Crow Women have a tradition of making white foods for Imbolc, and this dish can be tilted in that direction by judicious selection of ingredients.

goats are my source of milk most of the year

My latest batch consists of a very dense whole wheat bread I baked. It was inedible as sandwich bread, but cubed and stored in my freezer it made a perfect base with a little soaking. Softer bread should actually be dried out overnight so it will retain some integrity in the baking. To it I added blueberries & cherries, some pecans and chocolate chips, and sweetened it with maple syrup. Yum! I think my favorite though is still the pudding I made with sliced plums I harvested from a friend’s tree this summer and froze. Oh, and bananas in it are delicious as well.

Imbolc Bread Pudding

6 cups day-old bread (or frozen bread you’ve been storing up and thawed), cut up into cubes
Softened butter or oil for oiling the baking dish
4 large eggs, beaten lightly
2 cups whole milk
3/4 to 1 cup sweetener, dried or liquid (reduce milk accordingly if you are using maple syrup, honey or fruit juice)
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla

Good additions

2 cups fresh fruit (you may need a larger baking pan if you add this)
and/or 1/2 to 1 cup of any of the following:
Dried fruit
Toasted chopped nuts
Coconut
Chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush an 8-inch or 9-inch baking dish on bottom and sides with butter or oil. Put bread pieces in the pan.
Mix in fruit and other additions gently.
Whisk together eggs, milk, sweetener, cinnamon, and vanilla until well-mixed. Pour over bread, and press bread down so that it is under the custard.
Let stand 15 minutes for bread to absorb the custard before putting it in the oven. Bake until golden brown and toothpick in center comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Serves six to eight.

I’m sure the Goddess Brede approves of the thriftiness of bread pudding, which we, her followers, have no doubt been making for centuries. I hope you enjoy whatever version you make, as you realize your great potential for creativity in the kitchen this Imbolctide. As you munch on your bread pudding, consider what other potential you want to explore as part of your Imbolc vows.

cover photo of blueberries in the snow by Romain Rullaud

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