Husband bought some Challah bread this week for some
French toast he’s been jonesing after. I love challah French toast. The thick
slices and golden eggy crust are everything French toast should be. But an
entire loaf of French toast is a lot for two people, even on a snow day. Even
when we cut up all the apples in the house and make a delicious fruit compote
topping to convince ourselves this meal was good for us.
So we decided to use the other half of the Challah and make
some bread pudding.
As an avid fan of the show Chopped, I’ve been intrigued by bread pudding for some time. It’s everyone’s go-to dessert dish and the judges never seem sick of it – which is strange to me, because as far as I can tell, it’s bread and eggs and milk, baked. Really?? I needed to experience this for myself. I read a few recipes on Pinterest, but I wanted to do this Chopped style, by which I mean wing it. Also, after using basically a one-egg-per-slice ratio in my French toast batter, I only had two eggs and some left over French toast batter at my disposal.
In true Chopped fashion, I decided to also incorporate into my bread pudding some left over shredded coconut I found in the fridge that had been in there since… well I don’t know when. Does coconut go bad? I hope not. Mine passed the sniff test and in it went. To further liven the developing coconut theme of my bread pudding, I decided to use a can of Trader Joes “light” coconut milk instead of milk in my batter. I also added a few spoons of sugar, unsure of how sweet the coconut milk was and whipped up my custard batter as best as I could with a fork. I then spread my chopped up Challah into a cake pan and dumped in the egg and coconut mixture.
Just to give it a little extra something special, and because I had it in my pantry, I also decided to add a bag of white chocolate chips. Stirred it up, let it get all nice and mushy, and placed it into the oven, which had been preheated at 350.
Part way through the baking, the bread pudding had risen enough that it was dripping over and burning on the bottom of the oven. Place your cake pan on a cookie sheet to prevent this from happening to you. After about 40 minuets in the oven the pudding looked wet, but cooked (that’s the best way I can describe it. Like, if it were a cake, it would look underdone). Upon taking the pudding out and inspecting it more closely, the wet parts looked sticky and wonderful. I decided to call it done. I let it cool long enough to write this post and…………..
As an avid fan of the show Chopped, I’ve been intrigued by bread pudding for some time. It’s everyone’s go-to dessert dish and the judges never seem sick of it – which is strange to me, because as far as I can tell, it’s bread and eggs and milk, baked. Really?? I needed to experience this for myself. I read a few recipes on Pinterest, but I wanted to do this Chopped style, by which I mean wing it. Also, after using basically a one-egg-per-slice ratio in my French toast batter, I only had two eggs and some left over French toast batter at my disposal.
In true Chopped fashion, I decided to also incorporate into my bread pudding some left over shredded coconut I found in the fridge that had been in there since… well I don’t know when. Does coconut go bad? I hope not. Mine passed the sniff test and in it went. To further liven the developing coconut theme of my bread pudding, I decided to use a can of Trader Joes “light” coconut milk instead of milk in my batter. I also added a few spoons of sugar, unsure of how sweet the coconut milk was and whipped up my custard batter as best as I could with a fork. I then spread my chopped up Challah into a cake pan and dumped in the egg and coconut mixture.
Just to give it a little extra something special, and because I had it in my pantry, I also decided to add a bag of white chocolate chips. Stirred it up, let it get all nice and mushy, and placed it into the oven, which had been preheated at 350.
Part way through the baking, the bread pudding had risen enough that it was dripping over and burning on the bottom of the oven. Place your cake pan on a cookie sheet to prevent this from happening to you. After about 40 minuets in the oven the pudding looked wet, but cooked (that’s the best way I can describe it. Like, if it were a cake, it would look underdone). Upon taking the pudding out and inspecting it more closely, the wet parts looked sticky and wonderful. I decided to call it done. I let it cool long enough to write this post and…………..
The bread pudding fell while it cooled. That’s not a bad
thing. It’s nicely condensed and yummy this way.
OMG guys. I get it. I totally understand now why all the
Chopped contestants make bread pudding and how it can be a winning dish. I have
nothing to compare this to… but YUM.
It’s gooey without being soggy and
custardy. The coconut flakes add nice texture and the white
chocolate chips give it a great flavor. This is a very sweet dish and if you don’t
have the sweet tooth that I have, you might want to omit the couple spoonfuls
of sugar I added.
Husband remarked that this bread pudding would be great with
a bitter cup of coffee. I myself began to crave a tall glass of cold milk. I am
definitely going to make this again. My only dilemma now is that bread pudding
clearly screams out for innovation and improvising on the one hand, but on the
other hand, this was such a slam dunk, I’ll be tempted to repeat this exact
recipe again next time. There could be worse problems to have.
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