Bread Pudding with Kiss of Raisins
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Cook time: 
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Serves: 6 to 8 servings
 
Ingredients
  • Bread – about 15 slices to produce about 8 to 10 cups of 1 inch bread cubes (You can use any bread, white or brown. I used brown bread. Also stale bread won’t make any difference)
  • Raisins – ½ cup or more as desired
For custard –
  • Eggs – 4
  • Granulated white sugar – 1 cup (200 gms)
  • Vanilla extract – 2 tsp
  • Ground cinnamon – ½ tsp + extra for dusting
  • Unsalted butter – 60 gms, melted and cooled
  • Milk – 2 cups
  • Double cream – 2 cups
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 150 C / 300 F and place a rack in center of the oven.
  2. Lightly grease a heatproof baking dish with butter. Place the baking dish into a larger roasting pan that has enough room around its sides to fill with water.
  3. Place the bread cubes in the baking dish. The size of the baking dish depends on the amount of bread you are using; you should have heaped bread cubes on your baking dish which you may find difficult to fit in but that is needed as once the bread cubes get soaked in custard, they will reduce down significantly.
Custard
  1. Combine the milk and cream and mix well.
  2. To make the custard, beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl using a hand mixer or balloon whisk until thick. This would take about 4-5 minutes if using an electric mixer and more with balloon whisk.
  3. Add the vanilla extract and ground cinnamon and whisk them in. Then beat in the melted and cooled butter. And finally add the milk and cream mixture. Whisk everything well.
Assembling the bread pudding
  1. Now it’s time to assemble the pudding. Carefully pour the prepared custard over the bread cubes until completely covered. Press down the bread cubes so they remain inside the custard.
  2. Spread the raisins all over the baking dish so that every nook and corner is covered.
  3. Prepare a water bath (A water bath is used to provide temperature protection for the egg custard. Source: Joy of Baking). Carefully pour in enough hot water so that the water is halfway up the sides of the baking dish.
  4. Bake for about 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Another way to judge whether the pudding is fully baked, is to gently press down on the center of the pudding. If any custard comes up to the top, the pudding needs to be baked a little longer.)
  5. Remove the bread pudding from the water bath and cool slightly before serving.
  6. Serve warm or cold with a dollop of softly whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Recipe by Flavor Quotient at http://www.flavorquotient.com/2016/08/bread-pudding-with-kiss-of-raisins/