My First Bread Pudding

No one knows a good bread pudding as affluently and prestigously as the hosts of POSH NOSH:

"Are you just playing with our food, or are you serious?"with a scorning eye

Does it inspire you too?

Plain, cheap, white bread is a great medium for experimental cooking. It shouldn't be shunned at just because it's made of alchoholicky tasting potato starch flour and is as gummy as playdough when mushed about. Cheap white bread should be looked at as one of the ultimate challenges that tests your ability to turn something drab to delicatably fab.

As a kid, I would always try to recreate my favorite sweets with using generic white bread as the base, and I learned a lot of neat little recipes. You can make quick and easy cinnamon rolls by flattening a slice of bread and coating a layer of butter, sugar, and cinnamon on one side then roll it up and toasting it in the oven. Then you have a nice cinnamon stick to dunk into a side of frosting! You can also soak a dry slice with gravy and place between your sandwhiches to add some extra savory moisture to a dry turkey or chicken sandwhich.

Bread pudding is ridicously simple and it's easy to readjust the recipe to meet your specific pallet. Just add more sugar to sweeten, or raisins for extra chunkiness and tartness, or a higher concentraion of cream to make extra moist and creamy. It's all up to you.

The recipe called for stale bread but i just took some fresh bread and toasted it to dry it out. This helps the cream soak in better.

Toss in about 2 cups milk (I used evaporated milk which I love to use in a lot of my cooking because it maintains the flavor of rich cream without the piling calories), 2 tablespoons butter, 3/4 cup sugar, some vanilla, cinnamon, rum flavoring if you'd like, some raisins, and about 4 eggs.

Tear the bread into small pieces in the pan and lovingly pour the mixed cream all over the pitiful, parched bread. Then bake at 350F for about 45 minutes.

My roommates could smell the sweet cinnamonny flavor warming up the second floor; it added a nice nostalgic holiday aroma for this chilly weather.

I am very proud of this one. It especially tasted wonderful when it was still hot and moist and eggy. I'll probably make this again for Thanksgiving :D.

-Angela