Butternut Squash Bread Pudding
Bread pudding is easily one of my biggest obsessions. Sweet or savory, it can be made countless different ways with numerous different ingredients. My addiction to bread pudding started a few years back, when I first discovered it as a dessert at Parish Cafe. I haven’t stopped eating it since! Whether it’s stuffed with fruit, covered in melted cheese, drowning in toffee or just came out of the inside of a Thanksgiving turkey – it’s always pretty glorious.
Here’s a simple recipe for bread pudding that I love for a vegetarian-friendly bread pudding a few friends and I made for dinner recently. Inspired by the ingredients inside last weeks CSA, and with a little advice from epicurious, it turned out to be fantastic! And of course, we added cheese. LOTS of cheese.
Ingredients
1 butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 apples, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 leek stem, diced
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
7 eggs
2 1/4 cups half and half
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 stale baguette, torn into 1-inch pieces
1 cup shallots, chopped
Some fresh spinach
Cheddar cheese & Parmesan cheese, grated
Salt & Pepper
Instructions
1) First, preheat the oven to 400′
2) In reality you can use whatever vegetables you want. Some recipes only include squash, we decided to go with a whole medley of veggie goodness combining butternut squash, yams, onions, leeks, apples and carrots in a casserole dish. Then add evoo, brown sugar, thyme, salt & pepper. Give the veggies a good mix so everything is covered with evoo and seasoning then place in the over to roast for 20-25 minutes.
3) While the veggies are roasting you’re going to want to take a bowl and combine eggs, half & half, butter, mustard and a pinch of salt, then whisk. If you have any dry white wine lying around you can throw a few teaspoons of that in too. We did. Next, take the stale bread and fold it into the batter. We used a sesame ficelle baguette from Iggy’s that was perfect but any baguette will do. Make sure all pieces of bread are covered in egg mixture then let this sit and soak for about 30 minutes.
4) With the veggies roasting and the bread soaking you’ll want to take a pan and heat up 2 tablespoons of oil, over medium-high heat. First you’ll want to throw in the shallots and saute for a few minutes until soft, next add the spinach and let cook for a couple of minutes. You’ll want to make sure you’re stirring fairly frequently so everything cooks evenly. Once the spinach has wilted a bit, it should be all set.
5) Next up, you’ll want to butter your baking dish. And butter aggressivley, so nothing sticks. The size of the dish is up to you depending on how many you are hoping to serve. There were four of us, and to be honest, I took a round one that looked like it would work. It made more than enough food for all of us. It probably could have served 6 or more.
6) Now you are ready to layer! Put half of the egg-covered bread in the baking dish, next layer with roasted vegetables, then the spinach, then the grated cheese, and repeat. You should be able to fit two full layers in a dish, and don’t be scared to really squeeze it all in there. Cover the top with more shredded cheese and pour over any extra egg mixture thats left in the bowl.
7) Cover the dish with tin foil, and bake in the oven for 40 minutes. After about 20 minutes you can remove the foil as the bread pudding continues to bake. Touch the bread to check and see if it’s ready, if it springs back almost like a sponge, you’re good! Turn the broiler on and let it cook for another 2 minutes so the cheese can start to brown. Don’t let it burn though, this literally takes no more than 2 minutes.
Once your bread pudding looks all sorts of golden and gorgeous take it out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes before serving.
Posted by Jacki Morisi November 30, 2011 10:16 AM
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