Raspbery Apple Bread Pudding

One of my earliest food memories is making bread pudding with my mom. Now, to explain one thing, my mom is not the best cook in the world. We typically had some sort of mexican food or hamburger helper when I was young. I will say that her mexican tacos are delicious, but I cannot really remember much else. Then when I became a vegetarian when I was 16, my mother stopped making me food. Not because she was mad at me for changing my diet habit, but more because she had no idea how to really make vegetarian food. Of course by that time, I was fully capable of cooking for myself. I soon developed a real love for cooking that I continue to have.

Anyways, I remember a time when my mom gave me a bunch of bread to break apart into little pieces by hand. We made bread pudding a lot because it was cheap and easy to make. I know now another reason was because it was also delicious. So delicious.

Since I have been married, I have made bread pudding twice. I thought I would share the recipe and the how-to for my latest creation: Raspberry Apple Bread Pudding with Raisins and a Lemon Sauce. What a mouthful. I had no intention to made it so fruity, but I figured I had all these fruits. Why not?!

Here is the recipe. I did not measure exactly, but here are my estimates:

Ingredients:

Bread Pudding:

 3 or 4 cups of chopped or pulled apart bread. I used a loaf of French Bread. I would say you should leave the bread out overnight to get stale. I just bought some day-old bread at the grocery store.

2 Cups milk or cream.

1.5 cups sugar. I did half brown half cane.

4 beaten eggs.

1 tsp vanilla.

1 apple chopped up. I used a red delicious.

1 carton of raspberries. I think the carton was 8 oz.

1/4 cup raisins. You can put how ever much you want.

Lemon Sauce

1 tbsp butter.

1 tbsp flour.

About 1/8 cup milk or cream. This again can vary. I wasn't measuring!

1/2 a lemon for juice and some lemon zest.

About 2 or 3 tbsp White Sugar. This can vary depending on how sweet you want it.

Directions:

First, you need to chop or pull apart the bread. I used a bread knife and cut them into about one-inch squares. They should look something like this:

Then you combine the milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla into a bowl and mix it up.

(Don' t mind that the picture has butter. I was originally going to put some in, but decided it didn't need the extra fat).

After the cream mixture is done, you pour that mixture over the bread and let the bread soak for 10-20 minutes. Make sure all your bread is soaking. I had to press some of my bread down.

As your bread is soaking, you can start on your fruit mixture! Basically, you need to put the fruit into a bowl and mix it up. I mashed the raspberries a little bit, but if you want them to be whole, I would not mix them up so much. I put the chopped apples and raisins with the raspberries and added some lemon zest in this semi-fruit compote.

 

After the bread has been soaking for a while, you can combine all the ingredients into a oven-safe bowl or pan, and mix it up! Put the bowl into an oven set to 350 degrees. I put mine into a water-bath. Basically, I put my bowl into a cake pan with about an inch of water in it. This helps the bread keep moisture. You'll keep it in the oven for about 45 minutes to an hour. I like my bread pudding really gooey, so I took mine out at about 45 minutes.

While your bread pudding is cooking, you can make your lemon sauce for the top!

To make the lemon sauce, you first need to start a basic roux. Melt your butter down and add the flour. Let this brown for a couple of minutes to get rid of the flour flavor. Then add your milk, lemon juice, and sugar. Let the sugar melt down and let the sauce thicken. This only takes a few minutes. If it becomes too thick, just add water or more milk. It should look something like this:

 

When your bread pudding is done cooking, put your lemon sauce on top, and enjoy! I shared this recipe with some friends, and they all loved it! I hope you have fun making it as well! Feel free to add some fruit, take away some fruit, or just add some vanilla and cinnamon to make a simpler and more traditional bread pudding.

Voila! Enjoy.