Pour Milk And Eggs Over Bread Slices To Start A Fluffy Breakfast Bread Pudding

Bread pudding is something of a lost delicacy these days. While you can still find it on restaurant menus or bakeries, it's not made regularly at home the way it used to be. In part, that's because a proper bread pudding can take all day to make. But there's a fast, delicious recipe that involves pouring cold milk, eggs, and a couple of other pantry staples over bread slices before mushing it all up and popping it in the oven. It removes a lot of the soaking time and the ingredients are almost certainly on hand. And like French toast, it makes for a comforting weekend breakfast.

This is a wonderfully simple recipe and a great way to use up stale bread. Take three or four slices of thick white bread and set them in a large mixing bowl (leave the crusts on for texture). Pour a cup of cold milk directly over the bread into the bowl to help accelerate the soaking. You can use regular, 1%, almond, or other alternative milks too. The bread will soak up the milk quickly allowing you to break it up into large chunks with a spatula before mixing in a couple of eggs, melted butter, a little salt, vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar. 

Rather than whisking up a separate custard as is often done with more formal bread puddings, in this version you're pouring each ingredient into the milk-bread mix and stirring to combine. Once everything is completely blended, and the bread has soaked up most of the milk, pour it into a small, greased baking dish and bake for about 30 minutes at 320 degrees Fahrenheit until fully set.

Bread pudding has a varied history and many precursors, including an 11th century English struggle meal. Milk toast is an uncooked cousin — served both as a kid's comfort meal and a Depression-era necessity — that involves tearing up well-toasted bread and serving it in a warm sugar and milk mix like an oatmeal. Capirotada, a must-try Mexican dessert very like bread pudding and served around Lent and Easter, dates back to Renaissance Spain and ancient Rome, and is made from crusty bolillo bread, piloncillo syrup, and cheese. The dish has many spins and has evolved a lot along the way. For example, New Orleans boasts a signature bread pudding with a bourbon or whiskey sauce that shows up on various menus around town.

The point is this dish, as simple as it is, is endlessly flexible. The core ingredients can be increased or decreased to meet your tastes. Mix-ins add texture and contrast, but aren't mandatory. You don't even need to use bread: day-old donuts also work in this simple, carb-forward pudding. Or upgrade your comfort dish by using better-quality breads, changing up the spices (nutmeg is a great option), mixing in dried apricots, raisins, walnuts, chocolate chips, or soft bananas, or topping everything with a cinnamon-sugar crumble. Into the milk and eggs, you can add a teaspoon or two of espresso powder, cocoa powder, or dark rum. Or brighten the dish by mixing in a sprinkling of fresh orange zest. Since it involves accessible, affordable ingredients, don't be afraid to experiment with seasonal additions, or anything else that sounds good.