Some people like eating bread heels and others don’t.  At our house, they’re not very popular.  So we put ours in the freezer and when we have enough we make bread pudding.  It’s a wonderful breakfast treat.

Note the raisins in the photo of the bread pudding.  You can add those to the recipe if you like.  However, in this case, I included some leftover raisin bread in the pudding.

Bread Pudding Recipe

8 cups torn/crumbled bread
3 cups milk
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup raisins
¼ cup butter
1 t vanilla
¼ t salt
¼ t nutmeg
3 eggs

1 – Put the milk, sugar, raisins, butter, vanilla, salt and nutmeg in a saucepan. Set the temperature on low and let it slowly warm while you deal with the rest of the preparation. The goal is to have the milk just start to boil (and not burn) by step 4.

2 – Take a small square pan and put tap water in it until you’ve got about an inch of water. Put the water-filled pan on the lower oven rack. Set the oven at 350 degrees. The water and the temperature will create a nice steamy environment for the pudding.

3 – Grease a 2-quart baking or casserole dish. Put the crumbled bread into the baking or casserole dish.

4 – Beat the eggs gently in a medium bowl. Now we turn back to the cooking milk mixture. Ideally, it will be just starting to gently boil. (Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn at the bottom. ) Once you see a few bubbles take it off the heat and add a few tablespoons of the milk mixture into the eggs and stir it around. Then add the egg mixture to the milk.

5 – Pour the milk and eggs over the bread. Gently stir to distribute the raisins and make sure that all the bread gets wet. Open the oven (brace yourself for the steam) and put the pudding on the upper rack. Cook for one hour.

When you serve you can top this with honey, jam or cream.