Bread pudding is one of my favored desserts, it is best served lukewarm with preserved fruit, or vanilla sauce, or simply maple syrup. (Picture shows the finished bread pudding fresh out of the oven, they will cave in some while cooling.)
Preparation time:20-30 minutes; Baking time: 50 minutes; Amount for 6-8 guests
Grocery list:
- 300g soft white bread, I use Challah (which is identical to the Swiss Sunday Zopf), but I guess other soft white bread works fine, too, if the the crust is very hard I would cut it off, I usually use fresh bread for this, but ‘stale’ bread will do fine.
- 1 or 2 Vanilla beans (or a few drops of vanilla essence)
- 100 g sugar
- 6 eggs
- 500 g milk (0.5 l)
- Butter for coating the baking dish
Measure 500g milk and put it in a pan. Cut 2 vanilla beans lengthwise and add to the milk, bring to a boil.
Break the 6 eggs, use 3 full eggs and 3 egg yolks.
Add 100 g sugar to the egg yolks and beat the mixture vigorously for a minute.
Break the bread in small chunks.
Remove the boiling milk from the stove, and wait 5 minutes, remove the vanilla beans. Now combine the milk and the egg mixture, whisk thoroughly. Add the bread to the mixture, Coat the bread well for at least 5 minutes, this guarantees that all liquid is soaked into the bread. There should be no free liquid be left, if there is still free liquid add more bread. With hard bread you will need to soak longer. See picture for consistency of the bread-egg mixture.
Coat the baking dishes with butter, For this recipe I used 8 small cups but you can use one large bowl instead.
Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). Put the cups or bowls int into the oven and bake for approximately 50 minutes, The pudding will raise and when done will be brown on the top (see first picture).
Variants:
Add cinnamon
Add chocolate bits
Add dried fruit, for example raisins, dried cranberry, apple bits. If you add fresh fruit such has apple you will need to experiment wit the amounts, you may need more bread because of the liquid from the fruit, or bake longer.
Serving:
Serve lukewarm with chocolate sauce or powdered sugar or cinnamon or maple syrup.