From old to new ~ Bread Pudding

If you have a family with finicky eaters like mine, you will end up with a lot of bread. I mean bread trimmings. My hubby and youngest son don't like the edges of sliced bread. So, they slice them off and just eat the white part of the bread. Well, me and Bottomless Pit (eldest son) don't care and eat the whole thing.

What I do with the bread trimmings is that I gather them in a resealable plastic bag and stuff them in my freezer. When I see that the bag has morphed into two bags of bread trimmings (along with old bread), I take all of the bread and dump it in a large mixing bowl. Let's say, it'll be about 10-12 cups of bread. Add some eggs, sugar, sliced fruit, milk, etc. and you'll find that old, unwanted bread becomes yummy, delicious snack/dessert called bread pudding.




Here's my own recipe: Bread Pudding




Ingredients:

10-12 cups of bread (or two loaves of old bread)
1 liter of milk (or 2-3 cups of milk)
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups of milk
2-3 cups of diced fruit (choose firm, crunchy fruit like pears, apples, or even pineapples)
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cinammon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two cake pans and set them aside.

2. Take your old bread and dump into a big mixing bowl. Add milk and make sure all the bread gets soaked. Cover and leave in the fridge for about 1 hour.

3. When the bread is nice and soft, with clean hands mash the bread together until everything is mushy and well-mixed. Add the four eggs and mix with a spoon.

4. After mixing the eggs into the bread mixture, add the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix very well.

5. Add the diced fruit. I make my diced fruit even better by pre-cooking the apples and pears in a pan with butter and sprinkling it 2-3 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon. This makes the fruit nice and tasty. The pineapple I just dice in small cubes and mix it without pre-cooking it.

6. Again, make sure all the diced fruit is thoroughly mixed in the bread mixture. Now divide the mixture between the two cake pans. Bake for about 45-50 minutes in the oven or until the tops of the pudding are golden brown and when pierced with a toothpick, the stick comes out clean.

7. Let cool and slice into squares before serving. Makes about 40 squares. This recipe can be halved for those who prefer to make a smaller batch.