773 Delicious Bread Pudding

Bread pudding is a comfort food. I think it was developed by our grandmothers (well, not yours since you are younger) to use up stale or spoiling ingredients in the days before refrigeration. And so it came to pass, that on Monday January 24 I had a bag of stale sandwich buns, about 2 cups of milk well past the "do not sell after" date, and 5 eggs that had hung around like late night guests who don't know when to leave. So I decided I had the perfect set up for bread pudding.

In an odd coincidence, Monday was also the 5 year anniversary of my mother's death. During the grieving time I had written a very long story about my search for the perfect bread pudding recipe--something that tasted like hers. I wrote about going through her little wooden recipe box, one of the treasures I was able to take home after the funeral, and my delight at finding all sorts of names and tastes I'd forgotten. I recorded my testing of various recipes and taking them to pot luck dinners, all in the search for taste and texture (and my mom) that I remembered. I'm a little fuzzy on the details since I haven't looked at the essay for some time, but I don't think I found it. She probably made hers just by throwing a few things together and didn't use a recipe.

Five years later, I'm strong enough to accept a substitute, so the one I did make got rave reviews from my husband, and I thought it was delicious too--fine for breakfast, lunch or dinner (the dish was 13 x 9, so we had A LOT for just 2 people).

6 eggs, well beaten (I used 5--doesn't seem to matter)
1 cup sugar (I used Splenda)
2 cups light cream (I used 2% milk)
1 stick of butter (I actually had that on hand because I didn't make the Christmas cookies)
1 Tablespoon of vanilla (I think I reduced that a bit--sounds like a lot)
1 large French or egg bread, broken into pieces (I used 3 very large, stale sandwich buns)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup crushed pineapple
1 cup raisins, soaked and drained
(The recipe called for 1 jar of Bing cherries, drained, as optional. I had none and don't think this extra fruit is needed)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 x 13 baking pan or large ceramic baking dish.

Beat eggs with the sugar, cream, melted butter, and vanilla; pour this mexture over the bread cubes. Stir until bread is moistened. Sprinkle cinnamon over mixture; add pineapple and raisins.

Press mixture into the pan. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until the pudding is set. Serve hot. Serve additional cream to pour over the pudding.

Serves 12--or 2 if you're lucky.

I almost never mix the way the instructions read. I tore up the bread and put it in the baking dish and then poured the liquid over it, and dabbed on the fruit, sprinkled the cinnamon on top. Really, with these "make do" ingredients, for a dish our mothers and grandmothers threw together from left overs, it doesn't matter much. I served it with Cool Whip Free.