Sunday, August 28, 2011

Bread pudding

To be honest, the first time I'd heard of bread pudding wasn't until after I was diagnosed with Celiac, so I've never tried it. I've also never been a huge fan of bread, so the idea of bread pudding never really struck me as something delicious. But, everyone I know raves about it.

Well, today I had stale bread. I bought some Udi's hamburger buns on clearance and haven't been able to use them for actual hamburgers yet. They were getting pretty old, so I wanted to use them up quickly. I get the idea- kind of like a custard but with bread in it.

So I tried it out.



Bread Pudding

1 1/2 c. milk
1 T. butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 eggs
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1 t. vanilla
3 1/2 c. stale gluten free bread, torn up into pieces
1/2 c. pecans

Preheat oven to 350. Place the bread and pecans into a 1 qt casserole dish, mixing them up. (I placed them in the dish, put the lid on, and shake it around.) Beat the eggs in a bowl.

Heat the other ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat,stirring frequently until the butter has melted. Turn off the heat. Mix a spoonful of the warm mixture into the eggs- mixing quickly and using a spoonful at a time so that the eggs don't scramble.

When half of the warm mixture has been added to the eggs, stir the warmed egg mixture back into the saucepan. Pour the entire mixture over the bread, soaking each piece, and bake covered for 40-45 minutes. I removed the lid for the last 10 minutes of baking to get kind of a crusty top.

Rather than fiddling with a sauce, I poured a smidgen of straight brandy over the warm bread pudding.

It tasted kinda like a glorified alcoholic french toast. Definitely not bad.

Now, I can't compare it to normal bread puddings, but I wont have a problem finishing the rest of the batch. Second breakfasts are going to be good this week!

**I suppose that heating up the milk and tempering the eggs wasn't necessary; you could probably just mix it all up cold and pour it over the bread with the same results.

*** Update: Maybe not. Check out the comment regarding cooking time/ texture changes.

2 comments:

Castal said...

I have found that you can pretty much dump it all together, but it does cook faster--with less of an eggy stratified bottom--if you add the extra step. Not bad, just different. You also might want to try adding a bit of the brandy to the egg/milk mixture, it is heavenly (and also works with Madiera or any other sweet fortified wine).

Jennifer said...

I never thought of that-- thank you!