Banana Walnut Bread Pudding

This bread pudding is amazingly simple to make. Nothing fancy, just a basic bread pudding recipe with a few additions. To make it more tempting for my two lil' monkeys, I have added walnuts and bananas.

I made this pudding with the sweet braided bread that I baked yesterday. This bread already had a lot of sugar and butter so I added just 1/2 cup sugar (1/4 cup white and 1/4 cup brown), skipped the butter, and used 2% milk to cut down the calories. To make this richer (if you don't mind the calories), add the butter and use whole milk and heavy cream (1 cup whole + 1 cup heavy cream).

Make this pudding with any 1-2 day old bread you have on hand. 1 day old French or Vienna loaf tastes great in this pudding (no, don't use the wheat bread). For a non-sweet bread, increase the sugar by 1/4 cup.

Banana Walnut Bread Pudding

Ingredients

White bread (About 6 slices cut in to small cubes/ apprx. 6 cups).
2 cups 2% milk
3 eggs
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup crushed/chopped walnuts
2 ripe bananas, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla essence
2-4 tbsp melted unsalted butter (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Place the bread cubes in a baking dish. If using the butter, pour it over the bread. Mix rest of the ingredients and pour them over the bread. Let it stand for a few minutes till the bread absorbs all the liquid. If the mix is too watery, add some more bread. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 - 50 mins. Serve warm topped with whipped cream. For a more custard like texture increase the milk by 1/2 cup and add an extra egg.

"MINE"

The Bread Maker and homemade bread

I gave in. I am now a proud owner of a Bread Maker. I have always wanted to bake bread at home but those bread recipes which require endless kneading are a little intimidating. But wait! now all I need to do is measure the ingredients and add them to my bread maker and in 3-4 hours I'd be feasting on warm bread. Yum!

My first attempt was making a wheat bread. It tasted great. I even liked it toasted the next day. My second attempt was making a braided bread with orange zest and anise seeds. This one tasted even better! The house smells heavenly (sweet freshly baked bakery bread smell). The braided bread turned out humongous (see pic). I wish the recipe (taken from the bread maker manual) mentioned how big the braided bread would be!!

I would like believe homemade bread is healthier (without all those preservatives, additives and colors). But it does get stale within a day or two. I need to figure out ways to keep it fresh longer.

The Wheat bread

The Humongous Braided Bread