Bread Pudding Duet

This past week I was faced with a difficult choice. With two delicious bread pudding recipes available - Peach Bread Pudding and French Toast Bread Pudding – I was having a tough time deciding which to publish. Only after much thoughtful deliberation did the right choice become clear: publish both and avoid making a decision all together. (It’s why I order steaks “medium”.) You'll see the basic method is the same for the two recipes; the only difference is some of the ingredients.

For anyone who has not yet experienced the sheer joy of a good bread pudding, the idea is simple: soak bread thoroughly in a custard (think French Toast), bake it until the mixture is firm, and serve it topped with dessert sauces, fruit, ice cream, or anything else you like. Depending on the recipe, almost any type of bread can be used: brioche, challah, French bread. I recently was in an Irish restaurant and had the pleasure of eating bread pudding made with Irish Soda Bread. Some people – I swear I’m not making this up – even make it with donuts. For the recipes below, I chose sweet Hawaiian bread and vanilla ice cream topping for the peach bread pudding and, since challah makes such great French Toast, I used challah with a pancake syrup topping for the French Toast Bread Pudding.

A couple of additional notes on the ingredients:

• The fat is reduced through the use of fat-free half-and-half (in place of the usual heavy cream) and egg-substitute.
• Canned peaches are used instead of fresh. As noted in the recipe for Mango and Friends Chunky Fruit Salad from a few weeks ago, I normally favor fresh fruits over canned, but sometimes make an exception for peaches since the texture and flavor of the fresh ones can be very inconsistent through the season. (This is similar to the reason so many cooks choose canned tomatoes over fresh.)

There’s a lot of inactive time involved, but the recipes themselves are easy. Each recipe below makes 6 – 8 dessert-size servings.

To make Peach Bread Pudding:

Tear one pound of Hawaiian Bread into 1” pieces and toast it lightly or, better, leave it out overnight to get stale.

Once the bread is either toasted or stale, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While the oven is preheating, divide a 29 ounce can of peaches in juice into a ¾ cup portion (about 1-1/2 full peaches) and the remainder (about 1 cup, or 2 full peaches). Mash the ¾ cup portion, and slice the remainder portion into wedges. Set both aside.

Form a custard by whisking together 2 cups of fat free half-and-half; 4 egg-substitute eggs; ¼ cup honey; ½ teaspoon of kosher salt; ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg, and ½ cup low-fat peach yogurt. When the custard is mixed, fold in the mashed peaches and set aside.

Place the bread pieces in an 8’ x 11” baking dish greased with butter substitute. Pour the custard mixture over the bread and let it rest for about 10 minutes while the bread absorbs the liquid. If necessary, press down gently on the bread to help the process.

Cover the pan with foil and bake until a knife inserted comes out clean, about 40 minutes. If you’d like the top browned, remove the foil and let bake for another 5 – 10 minutes. When you’re done, take the baking pan out of the oven, let the bread pudding cool and cut into rectangles with a knife or into rounds with a cookie cutter. Garnish the sliced peaches and a good vanilla ice cream, and you’ve got a tasty dessert without a lot of fuss!

Or, if you prefer the French Toast Bread Pudding:

Slice a one pound challah bread into 1” slices and carefully cut off the crusts. Toast the pieces lightly or, better, leave them out overnight to get stale.

Once the challah is either toasted or stale, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Form a custard by whisking together 2 cups of fat free half-and-half; 4 egg-substitute eggs; ¼ cup honey; ½ teaspoon of kosher salt; ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg, ½ tablespoon of vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and ½ cup low-fat plain yogurt.

Place the challah pieces in an 8’ x 11” baking dish greased with butter substitute. Pour the custard mixture over the challah and let it rest for about 10 minutes while the challah absorbs the liquid. If necessary, press down gently on the challah to help the process.

Cover the pan with foil and bake until a knife inserted comes out clean, about 40 minutes. If you’d like the top browned, remove the foil and let bake for another 5 – 10 minutes. When you’re done, take the baking pan out of the oven, let the bread pudding cool and cut into rectangles with a knife or into rounds with a cookie cutter. Top the pudding with syrup, sliced fruit, or anything else that goes well with French Toast, and you’ve got another tasty dessert, also without a lot of fuss!

So now you have two delicious bread puddings to make and serve! And, as you can see from the above recipes, bread pudding provides a lot of opportunities to put in – or take out – anything that’s to your liking to make endless variations of this tasty, classic dessert.

If you‘d like a cookbook style, notebook ready copy of these recipes, just let me know, make sure I have your e-mail address, and they shall be yours!

I’m looking forward to seeing you again next week. Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)