Quarantine Cooking: Bread Pudding

We're still here in the house trying to figure out what to cook next while restaurants and eateries are slowly trying to reopen. A big issue we have in our pantry is that we rarely finish our bread before the expiration date. This past week was worse because we got our bread from Costco, which usually requires us to buy two loaves to get the best price per loaf. With all this leftover bread, I turned to an old favorite, bread pudding.

Bread pudding is super easy to make, and there are different ways to prepare it. My mom would use condensed milk or evaporated milk, but I had neither on hand. So I went with regular milk, which worked perfectly fine. I used several slices of old Italian artisan bread and some slices of Japanese white bread for my bread. If you've got some old bread on hand that you don't want to waste, give the recipe below a try!

Prep Time: 45 min (+ 1 Day)

Cooking Time: 45 min

Total Time: 1 hour 30 min (+ 1 Day)

Ingredients

Bread Pudding

-8 cups of day-old white bread (torn to pieces)

-5 eggs

-4 cups of milk

-1 tsp of vanilla extract

-1 tsp of nutmeg

-1 tsp of cinnamon

For the sauce (optional):

-1/2 cup of unsalted butter (or 1 stick)

-1 cup of brown sugar

-1/4 cup of milk

-1 tsp of vanilla extract

1. Prepare eight cups of torn pieces of day-old white bread. To do this, leave your bread out in a bowl for one day or until bread is completely dry. You can also put the bread in a broiler for 2 minutes to dry out the bread.

2. Line the bottom of a 9x13" greased baking dish with the pieces of bread. Try to cover the entire bottom surface.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk your eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg until fully combined.

4. Pour your mixture into the baking dish, making sure to cover every single piece of bread. Use a fork to push the bread into the mixture if needed.

5. Allow bread to soak for 30 minutes.

6. Preheat your oven to 350°F.

7. Place the baking dish inside and bake for 45 minutes.

8. Remove dish from the oven and allow it to cool before enjoying.

Optional Sauce - Recipe

1. In a medium saucepan, melt your butter, brown sugar, and milk at medium heat. Occasionally stir for about 5 minutes or until the mixture is thick and ribbony.

2. Remove mixture from heat and add vanilla. Stir until combined.

3. Pour sauce liberally over the bread pudding.

Serve either hot or cold.