Bread pudding has to be one of my all-time favorite desserts-- what I love about bread pudding is that it's rather hard to mess up; you can pretty much toss in any of your favorite mix-ins, and you can bake it as little or as long as you wish, depending on your preference. The blend of milk, sugar, and eggs really turns out delicious whatever way you make it. You can also use any combination of bread that you want (I've used croissants, multi-grain, white, italian, french, cinnamon raisin, wheat, challah, brioche-- you name it! You can even use doughnuts!), stale or fresh! You can also make a huge batch all at once, and this is definitely an easy but delicious and impressive crowd pleaser. It may take a few tries to try to reach the perfect consistency that you're looking for, but I've included the general guidelines for making the texture that I prefer. Instead of using stale bread, I actually always prefer to use fresh bread and oven-dry it, so that the bread is crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside--using oven-dried bread helps to achieve a texturally pleasant bread pudding that is crispy on the top and soft and custard-like on the inside!
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