Nothing says home grown cooking than bread pudding! I must say no matter where you are and how long the years have passed, we all are just softies for home baked bread pudding. I could never say no! Sometimes, I make it a point to have left over bread just so I have a good excuse to make some … even just for a nice sweet afternoon spent absolutely doing nothing!

You all know the basics of bread pudding, right? It’s just day old bread, milk, eggs and sugar mixed together and poured into a pan and baked. Anything else you want to add to it is all up to your creativity and what’s in your pantry. You can add raisins, nuts and other fruit of your choice.

Although it is typically a dessert, why limit yourself to that? Have it for breakfast! You may choose to serve bread pudding with rum sauce, whiskey sauce and caramel. It is just as heavenly with custard sauce or vanilla cream, and even chocolate.  Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or slather on some luscious whipped topping and you’ve got yourself a pretty fancy dessert without the real fuss.

Essentially, it’s going to back to basics … back to where it all matters …it’s what hits home and it always feels just as good as you always remember it. So just play around with this home grown recipe and use your favourite things to eat. You might just come up with a seriously genius creation. Here’s something for you to whip up this coming weekend maybe?

Apple Breakfast Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

12 slices day old bread
4 tbsp butter, melted
½ c raisins (optional)
1 apple, peeled, chopped
2 tbsp brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon powder
4 eggs beaten
3 cups milk
¾ cup white sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Mix chopped apples with brown sugar and set aside
• Break 6 slices of bread into small pieces into an 8 inch square baking pan. Drizzle 2 tbsps melted butter or margarine  over bread.
• In a medium mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Beat until well mixed. Pour half of mixture over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture.
• Spread over the apple and sugar mixture onto the bread layer and sprinkle with raisin if desired.
• Break the remaining 6 slices of bread over the layer of apples and sugar, drizzle with the 2 tbsps of melted butter and pour the remaining half of the milk mixture. Press down with fork making sure the bread pieces get soaked in the milk.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped.
• Serve warm with custard sauce or go all out with vanilla ice cream.

Photo Credit: missmeng

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