Eat Your Way to Nirvana

What do I do when I’m feeling beaten by the world? I bake. Yesterday I made the most amazing bread pudding in the whole freakin’ world. It was mostly a fluke, the creation of this marvelous dessert (based on what I had in my kitchen), but I wrote it all down, so it can be replicated!

Jen’s Most Delicious Blueberry Bread Pudding
(serves yourself + one other person a dessert each, plus enough for a leftover gooey breakfast the next morning)

• 1/2 loaf of Challah bread
• 3 eggs
• 2 C heavy cream (measure out 1 C, set aside other C)
• 1/2 C brown sugar, packed loosely
• 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 carton of blueberries
• sliced almonds (optional)
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350°.

Wash blueberries well, remove stems, add a dash of sugar and put in a pan on the oven, medium or high and let them simmer while you do the next paragraph.

Cut bread into cubes and put in big bowl. Mix the eggs, 1 C of cream and brown sugar together in small bowl. Zest the lemon and put zest in with liquids. Slice the lemon and put it in your iced tea that you’re drinking as you make this bread pudding. Add vanilla extract. Stir wet stuff into the bread cubes then let sit for about 10-15 minutes.

Take those blueberries off the heat and let them cool down a bit.

While you are waiting for the stuff to soak in, take that other cup of heavy cream and put it in a nice metal bowl. Put the bowl in the fridge for now and drink some more iced tea.

Now find a nice loaf pan – I used a clear glass one. If you use a metal one, you may want to butter the bottom and sides. I kind of like my bread pudding to get a bit chewy and crackly on the bottom/sides, so I left the butter out. Put half your bread mixture on the bottom of the pan, pour the blueberries over it, and then add the rest of the bread stuff on the top, spreading it a bit so you cover most or all of the blueberries. Sprinkle some sliced almonds on top and put in oven for about 25-30 minutes. I set the oven to broil for the last 2 or 3 minutes so the almonds would get nice and browned.

Get that cream out of the fridge, add some maple syrup (about 1 Tbsp) and whip until peaky and good. Serve with warm bread pudding. Roll eyes into back of head and make lots of gratuitous moaning sounds.