Yesterday, Restaurant Baby #3 Allison had a fondue dinner party. We were left with a lot of bite-size pieces of bread. You know what that means . . . bread pudding! I love bread pudding, but do not make it very often because Kim does a good job of eating up the bread we buy. No stale bread means no bread pudding.
With Mark Bittman’s recipe from How to Cook Everything, I added bourbon-soaked raisins and apricots, vanilla bean, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and apples (also from last night’s fondue party).
I also did not use French bread since none was on hand. The bread crust is also left on for two reasons: 1) I see no need to cut perfectly edible parts out , and 2) I like my bread hearty and with substance. The recipe below does not include the chocolate chips because that was a bit too sweet for my taste.
Three Treasures Bread Pudding
Adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons bourbon
- 1/3 cup golden raisins and cut-up pieces of dried apricot
- 3 cups milk
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus some for greasing the pan
- 1 teaspoon grounded cinnamon
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 8 slices of day-old (or more) bread, cut into 1” pieces or about 5-6 cups of bread
- 3 eggs
- 2 apples, peeled and cut into ¾” pieces
Directions
Soak the raisins and apricots in the bourbon for 1 hour or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350-F.
Over low heat in a saucepan, warm the milk, butter, cinnamon, sugar, and salt until the butter is melted.
Grease an 8-inch square baking dish with butter. Place the bread into the baking dish and pour the hot milk mixture over it. Let the bread soak up the milk; submerge any bread pieces that are on top and not getting in on the milk action.
Beat the eggs and stir into the bread mixture. Drain the extra bourbon from the dried fruit. Stir in the dried fruit and diced apples. Sprinkle a little sugar on top.
Set the baking dish in a larger baking pan and pour 1-inch of water into the larger baking pan. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Turn the oven to broiler mode and broil for 30 seconds to brown the top.
Serve warm or cold. It is good right out of the refrigerator the next day too!
