Brown Sugar Bread Pudding

Brown Sugar Bread Pudding With Caramel Sauce Recipe

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Brown Sugar Bread Pudding With Caramel Sauce Recipe

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Brown Sugar Bread Pudding With Caramel Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

Pudding

  • 6 cups cubed bread
  • 2 cups half and half
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar

Topping

  • 1/2 stick unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar

Sauce

  • 1 stick unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg (beaten)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 cup half and half

Directions

Step 1
One of the convenient things about bread pudding is that you can really use almost any kind of bread.

I used an italian loaf from the regular grocery store. It was unsliced, but there was nothing really fancy about it.
Step 2
This was a pudding made out of desire instead of necessity. Basically I just wanted to eat bread pudding in a bad way. It was not a clever use of stale bread.

I'm actually not sure if I've ever made bread pudding out of necessity. I usually just get in the mood and then about a day or so later I find myself eating half a pan of bread pudding and trying not to judge myself.

Anyway, if you're like me and find yourself using fresh bread, try to plan ahead at least a day. All you have to do is cube your bread and leave it in a bowl overnight to dry out. When you get up in the morning, the top will be dry and underneath will still be soft. Make sure to toss it around several times so everyone gets a turn on the top to stale.
Step 3
When you're confident that your bread is dry enough (or you just can't wait any longer to get down with the pudding) preheat your oven to 350.

Dump your cubes into the pan that you plan on baking in. I had initially cubed about 7 heaping cups of bread. However, I ended up taking a cup's worth out after my pan test.
Step 4
It was definitely going to overflow, so the turtles at our pond will get extra bread tossed to them next time.

For the topping you'll need about a half a stick of butter, but I steal a tablespoon from it first.

Use the butter wrapper and rub the tablespoon all around the bottom and sides of your baking dish.
Step 5
The rest of the half stick goes into a small food processor along with 1/2 cup of lightly packed brown sugar.

Looking back I would have chopped up the butter a bit, because I kept having to take breaks to mush the butter chunk down to get it to blend.
Step 6
Pulse several times until you have a well blended sugar butter paste.

Set aside until you're ready for the pudding to go into the oven.
Step 7
In a large bowl, crack open your 4 eggs. Then carefully separate two more, but only add the yolks.
Step 8
Add 2 cups of half and half along with 2 1/2 tsp. vanilla.
Step 9
Dump in 1 cup of regular sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and whisk the heck out of the whole mixture.

You want a creamy, yellowish, and bubbly concoction.
Step 10
Now it's time for these two crazy kids to get together and make some sweet sweet dessert lovin'.
Step 11
Carefully pour the custard over the pan of bread. Try to get everybody covered.

Here's the pan covered in custard.
Step 12
You want to make sure that everyone is REALLY soaked. To ensure a super saturation, smash all of the cubes down into the gunk with a spatula.

Make sure to go all around the pan, and show no mercy. No bread makes it out of this thirsty!
Step 13
Once everything is thoroughly sopped, let it just sit and soak all the goodness in for at least ten minutes.

Sprinkle your brown sugar butter topping all over the top of the pan.

Now all you need to do is pop the pan into the preheated oven, and bake for 40 minutes. Keep in mind that all stoves are different with their heat and cook times. You want everything set without a jiggly center.
Step 14
While the pudding bakes in the oven is the perfect time to make your brown sugar caramel sauce. Let me just reiterate that this is such a delicious sauce!

Start by heating one stick of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once it's not a stick anymore add the sugars, and beaten egg. Whisk everything together.
Step 15
I made a pretty amateur mistake, which i hope we can all learn from. I didn't temper my egg before dumping it in.

Surprise scrambled egg caramel!
Step 16
It's actually not that big of a deal... just an inconvenience. If this happens to you, set a mesh sieve over a bowl. Pour in your sauce, and leave your sweet scrambled eggs behind.
Step 17
Now pour your sauce back into the saucepan (still over medium heat) and stir occasionally as you wait for it to bubble.
Step 18
This took about four minutes.
Step 19
Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the half and half.
Step 20
Replace the pan over the medium heat and bubble away for another three minutes.
Step 21
Pull the pan off of the heat, and allow your lusciously smooth caramel to cool.
Step 22
This brown sugar caramel sauce would be delicious over almost anything!
Step 23
I served this at first with a salted caramel ice cream. It totally doesn't need it!

This stuff is so good that it really doesn't need any extra flavor help from anything else. If you do choose to serve it with ice cream, I believe this is one time when plain old vanilla is really the way to go.
Step 24
Please try this immediately!