A question about a recipe: Coffee-Nochella Bread Pudding

I have a question about step 3 on the recipe "Coffee-Nochella Bread Pudding" from dymnyno. It says:

"Temper the cream and the eggs." Can you (or anyone else) explain a bit to the cooking novices what this means exactly? I googled it, but I am still not entirely confident. Thank you!

megbennington
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Coffee-Nochella Bread Pudding
Recipe question for: Coffee-Nochella Bread Pudding

3 Comments

dymnyno
dymnyno April 23, 2011
Tempering is adding cold eggs to a hot mixture without cooking the eggs. We want to end up with a creamy liquid with the eggs incorporated, not a lumpy cooked solid. So, we sneak up on the eggs by adding a little hot liquid(milk?) while whisking away. If it is your first time err on the side of caution and you will start to feel comfortable about how much and how quickly you can progress with adding the eggs. Be sure to keep whisking!
 
megbennington
megbennington April 23, 2011
Thanks hardlikearmour! That makes sense. :)
 
hardlikearmour
hardlikearmour April 23, 2011
If you add eggs to a hot mixture they will scramble on you. To prevent this you temper them by adding a smallish amount of the hot mixture (say a ladleful) to the eggs while you are whisking them. You then add the tempered mixture back into the hot mixture, again while whisking.
 
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