Bread pudding is one of my favorite treats to make because it is amazingly easy, cheap, and surprisingly relatively healthy. It is also a great way to use any old bread you happen to have.
Here is how you make bread pudding, ready? Combine bread, custard, and filling. Bake it. You’re done! Besides its ease, another reason I am a big fan of bread pudding is because you can make it hundreds of different ways. For example, some various types I’ve made before are chocolate, ham and swiss, and one time the stars aligned and I made an incredible chicken pot pie-themed bread pudding.
Essentially any flavor combination you can think can be made into a bread pudding, so get creative and give it a go. Below is the recipe for one of my favorites, apple-cinnamon bread pudding.
- 8 cups torn miscellaneous bread (this can be any type of bread you can think of. For this recipe I used half a loaf of regular wheat bread, a couple odd ends of homemade wheat bread, and some pumpkin and pound cake I picked up from the discount shelf.)
- 6 eggs
- 4 cups milk
- 6 apples, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup apple cider
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- Start off by preheating your oven to 350°.
- Combine the raisins and apple cider and let soak for ten to fifteen minutes. It is perfectly fine to add the raisins as is, but I like the extra flavor and juiciness the raisins pick up through macerating in the cider.
- Combine the eggs, milk, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix thuroghly until smooth. This is the custard that will be the binder for all of our ingredients.
- The fun part: combine the bread, custard, apples, and raisins and pour into a greased 9x13 baking pan. An optional step here is to sprinkle brown sugar over the top to give the pudding more of a crust.
- Bake for one hour. This time may vary based on the legitimacy of your oven. Mine sometimes is a liar and says it is running hotter than it actually is so make sure to check the pudding periodically by putting a toothpick through the middle. If it comes out clean then the pudding is done.
Let the pudding sit for an hour or two before eating. Be careful where you do this.
Extra credit: make your own whipped cream. Like the bread pudding, this is incredibly easy to make. You will want to make this right before serving because it does not keep very well.
- Combine one cup of heavy cream and ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whip the mixture until frothy. You do not want to do this by hand, it is exhausting.
- Continue whipping and slowly add two tablespoons of white sugar. Whip until the cream gains a structure and peaks begin to form.
Enjoy!
