Yet Another Bread Pudding...

My day off has me a little bored and left with not much to do but sit here and write on my iPad, so I decided to take some week-old bread that Dani brought home from the health food store and throw together a bread pudding. I guess I've been fascinated by the dessert recently and it's endless possibilities. I don't do much cooking at home besides the occasional scrambled eggs with bacon for breakfast, but honestly haven't even done that in a while.

Cutting up this bread was a little difficult...being a week-old it was almost petrified! I got through it anyway, cautiously crunching off the crusts with my wusthof that we got as an engagement gift a few months ago while trying not to chop off my fingers in the process. Getting all of my ingredients together was also a little tricky...like I said I don't do too much cooking at home so the supplies are sparse. I managed to put a few things together none the less.

-5 EGGS
-1 quart 1% MILK
-1 cup SUGAR
-1 tbsp CINNAMON
-1 tsp ALMOND EXTRACT
-1 VANILLA BEAN
-1 tbsp ORANGE ZEST
-1/4 cup DRIED FIGS chopped
-1/4 cup DRIED APRICOTS chopped
-1 stick of SALTED BUTTER

My reasoning for adding the butter was due to the fact that I had no heavy cream...so I had to rough it out with the 1% Milk in my refrigerator. But, after tasting the pudding I definitely could have done without it or maybe just a lot less…it didn't really mix in well with the rest of the ingredients. I whisked all the wet ingredients together, tossed in the chunks of bread and let them soak for a half an hour. Then I transferred everything into my baking tray loosely covering it with aluminum foil and slid it in to the oven which I preheated @325.

Baking time is normally 45 minutes-1 hour. Although the butter threw off the texture a little, I was very happy with the flavors. Next time I'll make sure I go to the store and pick up some heavy cream…should make a huge difference.

ENJOY!