"Used bread" bread pudding

We try to live frugal -- when you live on a fixed income these days, you don't have much choice in that.

One of the ways we try to keep our grocery spending within our means is to shop for the marked down things. My mother has been doing this for years -- she refers to it as "used food".

Recently a trip through the "used bread" in my local market yielded up a loaf of frosted cinnamon raisin bread -- it made great breakfasts, but it was a big loaf, so it started to get stale before we could eat it all.

My solution was to turn it into dessert!

Here's the ingredient list:

For the pudding
3 to 4 cups of bread cut into about 1 inch cubes -- I've used left over cinnamon rolls for this too
2 cups milk
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins or craisins
1 recipe of hard sauce (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Select a glass baking dish that will hold at least 1 1/2 quart, spray with non-stick spray, set aside

In a small sauce pan, bring the milk and the butter just to a boil and remove from the heat

Lightly beat eggs, sugar, salt and cinnamon together, add a small amount of the hot milk to the egg mixture and beat again, then pour the egg mixture and the milk together in a bowl to mix (caution: don't skip that adding hot milk to the eggs step or you'll end up with scrambled egg which is not what you want here -- this is called "tempering" and it's an important technique to know when you do baking or working with chocolate)

Add bread and raisins or craisins and mix well -- let the bread soak up the liquids

Pour into prepared baking dish

Place baking dish in a pan (I use a 9 by 12 inch metal baking pan) that will hold water 1 inch deep around the glass dish.

TIP: put the two pans in the oven and use a large measuring cup to add the water to the pan while it's on the oven shelf -- when you take the pudding out, let the metal pan sit in the oven until the water has cooled before you take it out -- this may be a bit "fiddly" but it will keep you from getting a nasty scalding burn

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes -- until a knife inserted 1 inch from the edge comes out clean

Serve warm with ice cream, whipped cream or hard sauce



Recipe for hard sauce:

6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
5 tbls milk or cream
1/2 tsp almond extract

Beat cream cheese until fluffy

Add sugar gradually, beating after each addition

Add milk and almond, and mix well

Cover and chill

(this is great used on banana nut bread or just about any other sweet bread too)

Enjoy!!