Bread Pudding

  

After making French bread earlier in the week, I realized that it wasn't possible for us to finish all of it before it wouldn't be worth eating, so I decided to make bread pudding. I used a bread pudding recipe from the Earth to Table cookbook for inspiration, but I didn't have all of the ingredients that the recipe called for. This meant that I had to come up with a recipe of my own that uses ingredients I had on hand. Here's the recipe. 

Ingredients 

8 cups of French bread (you can, of course, use whatever bread you want)

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup walnuts

2 apples, cubed (I used Royal Gala)

3 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1-1/2 cups whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup maple syrup or to taste

Begin the recipe by preheating your oven to 350 F. 

Next, cut the French bread in to cubes. Measure the bread cubes as you go, and evenly distribute the bread in an oven dish. 

Put the dried cranberries and raisins into a bowl and pour hot water over them. Leave them a few minutes to soften. Once they're soft, drain them, and sprinkle them evenly over top of the bread cubes. 

Chop the walnuts and cube the apples, and sprinkle them over the bread as well. I used royal gala apples because that's what we had, and they worked well because they keep their shape and texture when they bake in the oven. I'm sure any other apples would be fine though.

To begin working on the egg mixture, combine the eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk them together. Add the whipping cream, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla extract to the eggs and sugar and whisk them. It'll look and spell a little bit like eggnog at this point. Once combined, pour the egg mixture over the bread. Make sure that the bread is evenly covered. 

This is what it will look like before going into the oven. 

Cover the oven dish with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Take the foil off and let bake an additional 15 minutes until nicely browned. 

Once the bread pudding is baked, pour the maple syrup over the bread pudding and let it sit for 20 minutes before serving. You can always pour a bit of maple syrup over the bread pudding when you serve it as well. 

The recipe should serve up to eight people (approximately).