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5/10/10

Holler for Challah Bread Pudding

I might have mentioned a few times that I'm Jewish, but don't follow Kosher laws and mostly enjoy the cultural aspects of Judaism as opposed to religious ones. One such aspect is challah. I absolutely love challah bread and have baked it several times: plain, with cranberries and orange zest and with Nutella. I've also made Challah French Toast and baked challah casserole with apples.

This past Friday, I decided to buy a loaf of challah at an outside market right by Union Station. At $3/loaf, this was a great deal. Unfortunately, the challah tasted on the stale-ish side. What to do? Make challah bread pudding of course!

Like many of the recipes I invent and post on this blog, this one includes the ingredients I had on hand. I combined a few things together and crossed my fingers that I'll like the final result. This is as much of living on an edge as I can handle ;)

Holler for Challah Bread Pudding

Ingredients

PAM spray
5 eggs
1/8 cup real maple syrup
2 teaspoon vanilla (I used the one I made at home)
3/4 cup half & half
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
1/4 cup dried cherries
1 challah loaf cut into 1 inch cubes

Directions

1. Spray a 12 inch muffin tin with PAM.

2. In a bowl whisk together eggs, maple syrup, vanilla and half & half.

3. Fold in chocolate chips, cherries and challah cubes. I found that using my hands was the best technique for it.

4. Fill each muffin cup with the mixture. Again, using my hands was the easiest way to do this as I was able to make sure that each mini bread pudding had an even amount of chocolate chips and cherries.

5. Cover the muffin tin with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night. [If you wanted to, you could also bake it right away...the flavors just would not have time to mingle together.]



6. Preheat the oven to 375F and bake the challah bread pudding for 30 minutes.



7. Serve warm out of the oven with a drizzle of maple syrup.



Note: I had a really hard time removing each mini challah bread pudding from the muffin tin. Perhaps it would have been better to use butter instead of PAM.


This is a great make ahead brunch/breakfast dish. It took about 10 minutes to put it together: I'm sure you have 10 minutes!


Of course you can change this recipe by omitting chocolate chips (but why would you?), switching up dried cherries for cranberries or raisins and adding other flavors such as citrus zest or almond extract.


After baking these mini challah bread puddings, my apartment smelled sweet for hours!

20 comments:

Stacey Viera said...

Great idea to make them in a muffin tin! YUM!

Velva said...

This looks awesome. The invididual servings is a creative approach to serving this delicious bread pudding too.

Unknown said...

Absolutely stunning. I love these individual servings, very clever.
*kisses* HH

Unknown said...

I made some challah last weekend, 3 loaves. Which is way too much for 2 people. I need to use it for these little guys! Yum!

Simones Kitchen said...

That looks delicious Olga and great idea too to bake them in the muffin forms. Bite sized little beauties!
I sort of knew you were Russian but I missed the fact that you're Jewish... I made a Jewish treat on my blog, although I probably did something wrong (again) lol...

grace said...

in addition to eating challah in its various forms (french toast is a favorite, but i can easily see this bread pudding being a hit), i also enjoy saying the word. good times. :)

Maria said...

What a treat! I love the mini little servings!

Delicious Dishings said...

I keep seeing recipes with cherries and chocolate everywhere! I actually bought both ingredients not too long ago because I'm planning to make some granola bars, but I haven't had time yet.

I'm inspired by your mini bread puddings. I usually don't like bread pudding because I can't stand soggy bread, but yours look really nice and they held together so well, so I imagine they are not soggy at all. I love the idea of baking them in mini muffin pans.

(P.S. My boyfriend is Jewish, and one of these days his mom is going to teach me how to make challah. I can't wait!)

Paula - bell'alimento said...

Challah is one of my favorite breads! What a great idea to do with it!

Lo said...

How fun that you baked individual servings. It's totally like french toast :) Challah ROCKS. And it's not so difficult to bake, even for first timers, as you might think (love that).

Juliana said...

Oh! Love the idea of individual portion...looks yummie! Indeed a nice addition to brunch.

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of mini bread puddings, so delicious!

pigpigscorner said...

Great idea making individual portions! Looks so cute and less messy.

Leslie said...

A-mazing! Since they are mini..does that mean I can eat more???? lol

Sharon said...

I too am Jewish, I too mostly enjoy the cultural aspects, and boy do I love Bread Pudding!! What a great idea to make mini ones!! Great recipe thanks for sharing!!

nicole said...

i really do like the muffin tin idea -- easy to pack for lunch or take on the go!

nicole said...

olga, i'm making these right now! i'm making a savory version though because I intend to use them for lunch. I used 'em to kinda clean out the fridge and used 1 tomato, some turkey, some cheese, minced savory marcona almonds, flax seed, ground black sesame, soy sauce, eggs, and skim milk.
I'm really lacking in greens (green veggies or herbs) and wish I could have added in some dill or spinach.

Thanks for the great idea! I'll let you know how they turn out and how they come out of the muffin tins (i used liners instead of ploppin' them straight in)

Anonymous said...

I know this sounds crazy, but I would like to halve this recipe...it is only my husband and me at home now..and we would never eat all 12 of the puddings before they went stale. My query is...do you think it would be better to use 3 eggs or 2 eggs when halving this recipe? Thanks

Olga said...

hey, anonymous. I hope you come back to check out my answer ;)

Nothing crazy with half'ing this recipe. I think I'd use 2 eggs.

Good luck. Please let me know how this turns out.

Ms.Cynthia Vaughn said...

Hi ! My name is Cynthia Vaughn, I like your presentation you have for your delish dessert here, Ty ! I'm not Jewish but I respect there beliefs ! God bless you !