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Now, as my faithful readers know, I love Bread Pudding.  If I see it on a dessert menu, I order it.  Something about soaking brioche or croissants in a rich custard and then baking it (and then frying it,) really appeals to me.   In the case of Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding , pictured here, I use brioche.  I serve it with caramelized bananas, dark rum sauce, and salted caramel ice cream.  It’s starting to beat out the Chocolate Cake as our top selling dessert.   The idea for bread pudding, is as old as the hills, and its no wonder.  Set the Way Back Machine for the middle ages, at the advent of custard. Dude’s sitting there eating his baked custard, or more likely, swirling his day-old bread in his creme anglaise.  Ever the frugal cook and lover of bread (in spite of its short window of delicious,) he swirls and dunks and lifts and chews. POP! The light bulb goes off, bathing everyone in the light of pudding history, bread pudding is born.  Seriously, though, a better use for stale bread bread cannot be found.  It’s actually better with stale bread, because it’s more absorbent. Old cookbooks have tons of random recipes, but I like to take a slightly different approach.  Chef Tony showed me a way to make the custard that makes a lot of sense.  Creaming.  If you follow the creaming method, you get a nice rich custard where the butter is evenly dispersed in tiny little particles that melt into the bread in the oven.  Overnight soaking is key, getting that bread good and permeated with eggy flavor and creamy goodness.  Below is a huge recipe, adapted from Chef Tony Martin’s Bourbon Bread Pudding that to this day, is the best I’ve tasted.  I added chocolate chips to his base, but you could add almost anything to this, and it would be damn good. This recipe is 1/3 of what I use, it makes one 2″ hotel pan. Want a smaller recipe?  Try this one.

Bread Soaking Custard 

1 lb 4 oz butter

1 lb sugar

15 eggs1 qt heavy cream

1 qt half & half

 vanilla extract to taste

1.  Cream the butter and sugar light and fluffy with the paddle attachment in a stand mixer.

2.  Add the eggs slowly, in three additions, waiting until the eggs absorb and scraping before each addition.

 3. Switch to the whip and add the cream and half and half. 

So now that you have your custard, you need to soak some bread in it.  You need enough stale bread (brioche, croissants, or other bread-remove crusty crusts) to soak up almost all of the custard right when you mix it in.  Then cover it and soak it over night.   Next day mix in the desired amount of chocolate chips (or ripe bananas, caramel apples, scales of a sea serpent, eye of newt, or whatever tickles your fancy.) and bake it, covered with foil, in  a 325 degree oven for about 45 minutes, until its set. If you like,  pull the foil off 10 minutes before its done to brown the top.  Try something else delicious: omit the sugar, andbefore baking, add sauteed mushrooms, or chunks of foie gras, or bacon, or something savory.  It’s gonna be great.