Bread Pudding

Traditional Bread Butter Pudding is fine, but every once in a while, I like to take a recipe a tad further and put my own twist on it. Also, this one has absolutely no butter, but it's so decadent you're not going the miss the butter at all. This is my way of making Bread Pudding. It is not the traditional dry style of bread pudding; the one served with a custard sauce. I like my Bread Pudding soft from within and, crisp and chewy from the top. The texture of this is such, one does not need any custard sauce to go with it. This version is neither dry and nor is it totally mushy. I promise you, though, you’ll love the final outcome. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1-liter full fat milk

24 heaped teaspoons granulated sugar

5 slices of stale white bread,

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8^th teaspoon nutmeg powder

1/8^th teaspoon cardamom powder

Half a handful of mixed nuts (pistachios, almonds, cashew nuts) – optional

Method: 

1.    If you are using mixed nuts for garnish, chop into slivers and keep aside.

2.    Cut the crusts off the bread slices and cut the slices into pieces. Keep aside.

3.    Heat milk in a large vessel.

4.    Add sugar to sweeten.

5.    When the sugar melts, remove from the vessel from the stove and allow the milk to cool to room temperature.

6.    Break eggs into a bowl, add vanilla extract and the cardamom and nutmeg powders.

7.    Beat eggs well but not too frothy. I merely use a hand rotor to whisk.

8.    Add the beaten eggs to the cool, sweetened milk and give it a good whisk to ensure the milk and eggs are well incorporated.

9.    Add approximately three chopped slices of bread to the milk and whisk. The break should soak and break down in the milk.

10. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C for about ten minutes.

11. Empty the milk-egg-bread mixture into a baking tray.

12. Scatter the remaining bread pieces onto the top of the milk and allow them to ‘float and soak’ for 10-15 minutes. Do not squash these into the milk.

13. Put the baking tray into the middle slot of the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

14. At the 30-minute mark, slide out the tray and sprinkle the slivers nuts, if using. If you aren’t using the nuts for garnish, ignore point number 14.

15. Continue baking for 30 more minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

16. If you prefer a nice, slightly crisp, chewy top, switch off the main oven and switch on the broiler mode (top grill that lends heat from above) and continue baking until the bread pudding achieves the colour you desire.

17. Remove tray from the oven and allow to cool. This can be served at room temperature and you can also keep it in the fridge for 4 to 5 hours and serve it cold.

Chef Notes:

1.    I used normal, stale sliced white bread but if you have baguettes or croissants, please feel free to use them. Mostly any kinda bread works... No, no not sourdough or rye, please. Thodi apni bhi akkal lagao. 🤦‍♀️ Please note, stale bread works beautifully for this dish so if you have leftover stale bread, just go with that.

2.    The reason I whisk up a few slices into the milk is because it lends a lovely creamy texture to the pudding. The dry kinda bread pudding is so not my thing.

3.    Also, the reason I add remaining pieces of bread to ‘float and soak’ is because they turn beautifully crisp and chewy because of the limited soaking and the sugar content. This way the bread pudding is neither dry nor is it totally mushy. The soft texture within and the crusty-chewy texture on top is a sheer pleasure to the palate.

4.    The sugar content is mentioned exactly as used by me. Feel free to adjust it to suit your palate but, ALWAYS keep the milk on the sweeter side coz you will be adding eggs and bread to it. Do consider the added eggs and bread when you sweeten the milk, or you’ll be left holding a bland pudding.

5.    Always add vanilla extract to the eggs when whisking them for desserts. It helps eliminate the egg-y odour in the dessert.   

6.    You can avoid the slivered nuts and merely opt for the chewy bread texture if you so desire. I did add them coz I’m a Bawi; we love eggs, bacon, cheese and nuts and not necessarily in that order. 😊 I did make a second batch without garnishing it with nuts to show you the crisp, chewy texture.

7.    Just to clarify, the black specks you see in the milk (process photos on the blog) is not dirt. It’s the cardamom-nutmeg powder. *cheeky grin*

8.    When baking bread pudding, do not fill the baking tray right till the top. Ensure the bread pudding mix is filled to three-fourth tray level only. This is because bread pudding tends to rise when baked and you do not want an overflowing or dripping tray in your oven.

9. When in lazy mode, I sometimes cover the baking tray (from outside) with tall aluminum foil on all four sides of the baking tray so as to prevent oven wall splatters. Saves me an enormous amount of time from having to scrub the oven clean after the bake. Once the milk is in semi-set mode, I snip off the tall foil and proceed with sprinkling the slivered almonds. Easy-peasy! 😉
10. I have mentioned the oven timings according to my oven. Oven settings differ, hence, once a knife comes out clean, proceed to turn on the broiler and brown the bread pudding from top. This will ensure the pudding you make does not burn.
11. You may share the direct blog-link of the recipe/s but do NOT publish my recipes and my photographs on any blog-site or website without my explicit consent or attempt to pass off my recipe/s as your own. You will be held accountable for plagiarism.

Some More Photographs: