Sue’s Bread Pudding

If you’ve read CPM’s recent posts on The People Feeding Project, you know that we move a lot of food around weekly, shuffling ingredients from here to there and cooking things to hand out to the city’s hungry.  A lot of food gets handed out. But the truth of the matter is that what we cook is free or mostly free.  And we aren’t the only ones shuffling around ingredients either. This recipe features bread, which we are gifted weekly via our friend Liz who receives bread from her friend Camilla, who retrieves day old bread from bakeries in Napa, which then arrive to Food Is Free Solano. If you’d like to help Liz and friends feed the unhoused and food insecure in our community through her VJO Mobile Free Food Pantry, scan the code below to her Venmo. No donation is too small.

Day old bread is PERFECT for bread pudding.  Also, the eggs come from our egg supplier (on their way to expiration but still fine) and the sugar, coconut, toasted pecans and cinnamon was a gift from our friend Alexis, who recently gifted us all the dry goods from her bakery of 35 years.  Alexis also gifted us the nifty packaging with which to hand it out.  Crazy, right?  Crazy delicious…..

The people we share our food with LOVE this bread pudding.  Delicious and nutritious, I was given this recipe years ago by my friend Sue before she passed away.  It is, hands-down, the best bread pudding I’ve ever had.  You’ll be hooked!  Thanks, Sue!  Your memory lives on in this pudding!

Sue’s Bread Pudding

1 day old baguette, cut into cubes
4 cups milk
2 cups granulated sugar
1 stick (8 tablespoons butter, regular, salted)
4 eggs
2 Tablespoons vanilla
1 cup toasted, chopped pecans
1 cup toasted coconut
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat milk, sugar, cinnamon and butter on stovetop on medium heat, just until butter is melted, whisking occasionally, remove from heat.  Let mixture cool completely and whisk in eggs until well combined.  Add vanilla.

In a large bowl, combine bread cubes, coconut and pecans (see notes below for additions/substitutions).  Pour liquid over over the top of the bread and “stuff” mixture and let rest one hour, stirring occasionally to recoat bread cubes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a 9×13 dish and pour in bread pudding.  There will be a bit of liquid and that’s totally fine.

Bake one hour.  Shut off oven and let the oven cool while the pudding “sets”.  Remove pudding from oven.  Enjoy hot, cold or room temp.

Options – I love to throw in other cool stuff with my bread pudding so here are some really bitchin’ ones:

Peanut Butter Banana Bread Pudding:  Substitute equal parts butter for peanut butter and include chocolate chips and cut up bananas in your mix.  Add in extra Reece’s of your choice for more bang. 

Berry Bread Pudding:  Add fresh or frozen berries to your wet mix.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Caramel Apple Bread Pudding:  Substitute white sugar for brown sugar and add cut up apple and caramel bits.  Serve warm with fresh whipping cream.

Eat Well!

~Trish