A second appearance of The Brioche

I have a memory of bread pudding from a cafe in Helsinki, where I ate it many years ago. I remember the cinnamon and the comforting taste of custard on a wintery day. Eating it was like wrapping myself into a fleece blanket and putting woollen socks on my feet. This tasted at least as good and it didn't even need to be served with whipped cream or ice cream, as many recepies that I browsed through suggest.
This one was made from the left over brioches, I had from Saturday. It was baked in a water bath, so it stayed really moist and had creamy custard dripping between the fluffy and spongy bread bits. I found this recipe from joy of baking and addapted it a bit to suit my needs. I didn't add any raisins or other condiments because I felt like putting something simple and modest in my mouth, but you are free to add for example pieces of apple, banana, berries or sultanas, if you like.
The five brioche buns I had left were enough for this pudding. The quantities for other kinds of breads (for example french bread, italian, croissant or almost anything you happen to have) are below.



Bread pudding (makes about five servings)


about 1 liter (or 5 cups) of bread cubes

Custard:

2 large eggs
100 g sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
or 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter melted and cooled
5 dl milk


Preheat oven to 150 °C. Grease an oven dish (I used a round dish, 20cm diameter, 10 cm high) and place the bread cubes in the dish.

Prepare the custard: Beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy and thick (about 4 to 5 minutes). Add the vanilla and cinnamon and beat in the melted and cooled butter and milk.
Pour the custard mixture on the bread cubes and press with a fork so that all of the bread bits are covered.

Then place the dish in a larger oven dish and fill the larger one with hot water. The water should be half up-sides of the 20 cm x 10 cm dish.

Bake for about an hour, until a toothpick comes out clean. You can also test it by pressing the surface gently with a fork. If any custard rises to the top, it needs to be in the oven a bit longer.
(After an hour, I turned the oven off and left it in for another five minutes.)

Remove the pudding out of the water bath and let it cool down 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

It can be served hot or cold, with whipped cream or ice cream or with what I prefer - simply a dusting of powder sugar. Yum!