Bread Pudding Recipe

This is a very simple recipe, but I'm so fascinated by how the ingredients I used reacted. I had the great fortune of living close to the only authentic French bakery in Vancouver at the time (that I know of). One of the baguettes they produced they called 'buche', which appears to be a flat baguette with a very dense crust. This is what I used to make this recipe. I did not remove the crust and to my delight it not only absorbed all of the custard, but it expanded, crust and sponge, into a beautiful soufflé that kept its rounded shape in the pot for at least a minute before slowly deflating, the bread pieces forming oval honeycomb-ish shapes. Beautiful, and simple, two of my favourite things. Nowadays, since I bake my own bread, the pudding is heartier with my more dense Commons Bread, usually, and it continues to be delicious. The best way to make sure you have the right amount of bread is to use the weight. I'll save the ends in the freezer as the material for this recipe; it creates variation in the texture, which is quite nice. A great breakfast pudding, and elevated by serving it with some Crème Anglaise.

Yield: one 8" round glass baking dish

6 oz of diced day-old bread or ½ loaf baguette

4 large eggs

3/4 cups sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

A few pinches cinnamon

A smidgeon of nutmeg

2 tsp vanilla extract (or to taste, I likely use more, love the stuff)

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup milk

1 Tbsp (1/2oz/14gr) butter

(optional) heavy cream

1. Brush the baking dish with the melted butter to coat the bottom and sides.
2. If the bread is still too soft, you can toast and butter the slices. Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired. Layer the slices of bread into the buttered baking dish.
3. Whisk the eggs, add the sugar, salt and nutmeg, pour in the cream and milk, whisking to combine uniformly. Strain the mixture directly over the bread to completely soak the slices, cover and let sit as long as you like, even overnight, especially if the bread is very dry. The goal of course is to have maximum soaking and minimum dry bread.
4. Bake, covered, at 325° for 45 minutes. Rotate the pan if needed for even baking, and continue to bake covered until the custard puffs up. Uncover, and continue to bake until firm at the edges, soft but set in the center.
5. (Optional) you can serve with a drizzle of cream or Crème Anglaise or some such.