Easy Bread Pudding
This is one of those simple, quick desserts that I can throw together when I really want something sweet and homemade. The other one's the chocolate pudding I made for dessert when I braised some meat with a recipe from Chez Panisse - Basic Braise (Plus Pudding) in my archive.
The basic recipe starts with old, dry French bread and includes cinnamon and raisins, but I play around with it a lot, substituting chocolate chips for the raisins, cocoa for the cinnamon, adding other spices. This time, I used some leftover cinnamon-raisin bread, cut in 1-inch cubes. I soaked about 4 to 5 cups of the cubes in 2 cups lowfat milk for a couple of minutes, while I mixed together about 1/2 cup sugar, 2 eggs and a dash of vanilla. Added the sugar mixture to the bread mixture and stirred until combined, then put it in a shallow baking dish and baked it in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes, until the small puddles of milk-egg mixture have turned to custard. No water bath, no fancy ingredients. And it's a pretty good bread pudding.
Kim,
I was trying to find a bread pudding recipe. I put "easy bread pudding" into Yahoo! and this was the very first result!
Talk to you soon!
Nicole
Nicole! Did you make this? I like it just fine, although I think some people might find it a little too rustic (although I kind of think of bread pudding as a rustic dish, even though it's a custard).
Chad thinks this should be called "pudding bread" instead of "bread pudding"- he had never had bread pudding before and expected more of the creamy taste of conventional pudding.
I've made the pudding twice now. The first time I used what I had- whole wheat bread, soy milk, cage free eggs (I started out buying them for the health benefits (Omega 3's, Vitamin E)but they really taste better!)raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar. It was so good! The boys ate it up so quickly this weekend I had to buy a loaf of French Bread and do it again- but this time with more raisins and walnuts. I used Vanilla Silk Soy Milk both times with great success.
Have you ever made a total Chocolate bread pudding? I think that would be very good. This recipe is so simple and a great base I'll be playing around with! Thanks for the recipe!
Nicole
I have a recipe that uses Hawaiian bread, which is slightly sweet, cocoa powder and chocolate chips. I have to make that one in individual ramekins so I don't end up eating the whole pan at once. The entry for it, Chocolate Comfort, is in the single serving archives.