Bread pudding is one of my favorite desserts, even though I only discovered it recently. I stayed away from bread pudding as a child (something about "bread" and "pudding" just instinctively seemed icky to me) and only over the past year or two have I ventured away from this childhood fear to actually try the many varieties of this delicious dish. And I am pleased to report that the time finally came for me to try to make this dish myself last week.
After some research on the Internet, and in some cookbooks, I bought a Challah loaf, milk and eggs from Trader Joes. I continued to search for recipes as the bread became stale, and at the last minute, decided to put away the cookbooks and use this highly-rated AllRecipes.com recipe as my base: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bread-Pudding-II/Detail.aspx.
I lightly greased the glass 8 by 8-inch pan with a canola oil spray, and substituted 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips for the more traditional raisins called for in the recipe. I also used low-fat milk, and definitely could NOT taste the difference from using low-fat milk (which was completely an oversight as I usually bake with whole milk).
The bread pudding turned out extremely well though I did learn two lessons. First, I think I will use less egg next time I make the dish. There seemed to be a lot of egg in the egg mixture, so much so that the bottom layer of the bread pudding seemed to be just cooked egg which added a bit of a weird consistency and flavor to the very bottom of the dish. Second, I think that one really needs to make sure that the bread soaks up all of the liquid mixture — I think that really pushing the bread down into the mixture or letting it sit immersed for a period of time before baking (something a lot of recipes seem to call for — letting the mixture sit in the fridge for some time before baking) is important to ensure the top isn't overly baked while the bottom remains a bit more soggy. Notwithstanding these two lessons learned, this was an EXCELLENT bread pudding and I definitely look forward to making this simple dessert again and again!
**Update: Check out a new and improved version of this bread pudding at: http://www.madhuknitsandcooks.com/madhu_knits_and_cooks/2009/04/new-and-improved-chocolate-chip-bread-pudding.html
Leave a Reply