Cherry Vanilla Bread Pudding

Let me tell you a story:

Once there was this girl who really liked this boy so she thought she’d make him bread pudding. Not just any bread pudding, but a chai bread pudding, where the milk is steeped with spices and tea and the final dish is rich, flavorful and complex. She looked through her cupboards and was happy to discover that she had most of the ingredients on hand, which was good because spices like cardamom can be expensive. She went over to his apartment to make this bread pudding in his (and what is now their) tiny kitchen. She warmed the milk, mixed in the whole spices and tea and let it all steep for an hour. She mixed the milk with eggs, and added the bread and let it soak for a half an hour. She put it in a big pan and put that in an even bigger pan and put all those pans in the oven (along with some hot water to make the bain marie) for fifty minutes. She pulled the bread pudding out of the oven, perfectly browned and beautiful and it tasted. . . . awful. One thing this girl had neglected to do was check her spices (who knew cardamom could go bad! and in such a bad way! especially after it sat in storage in Pittsburgh one hot summer and hadn’t been used for a good three years).

From that day on the boy had a very negative attitude towards bread pudding. It became a running joke, he would say “you can make anything you want, just don’t make bread pudding!” One day, the girl and the pudding decided to plot a comeback. While the boy was away the girl made him bread pudding sans cardamom with two of his favorite flavors, cherry and vanilla. And it worked! He couldn’t believe it was the same recipe, the same pudding just in a new party dress. He loves this bread pudding now and would happily eat it any day of the week.

Moral of the story: always check your spices, especially if they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in storage during hot and humid months/on high shelves/not being used. And make bread pudding, it’s delicious.

Cherry Vanilla Bread Pudding
adapted from Martha Stewart

This is the most perfect bread pudding recipe. The bread and custard seem to meld into one beautiful, happy whole. It can be customized in a myriad of ways: add spices and use raisins instead of cherries, or go tropical with bananas, coconut and rum. You could add 8 ounces of chocolate to the cream recipe. If you’re brave you might add  1/4 cup black tea, 3 cinnamon sticks, a 2″ piece of peeled ginger, 8 whole cloves, 10 cardamom pods and 1/4 cup sugar to the cream mixture and let steep for an hour. You could possibly then strain said mixture, and mix it into the eggs. You could hypothetically then make a chai bread pudding for yourself, if you like, and if you have fresh spices.

I halved the recipe and made it in little individual cups (as you can see) but I prefer it in one big pan, there seems to be a better custard to bread ratio, so that’s the recipe I’m giving you. However, if you like, you can cut the recipe in half and cook it in 6-8 oz. baking dishes, just reduce the baking time to 40 minutes.

12 ounces brioche or challah, cut into 1″ cubes
2 cups milk
3 cups heavy cream
4 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cherries

Butter a 9″ x 13′ baking dish.

Place the bread in a large bowl.

Whisk together the eggs, yolk, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a medium bowl.

Heat the milk and cream in a medium saucepan until just about to simmer. Slowly pour the cream mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Pour over bread, folding to combine. Let stand 30 minutes, tossing and pressing occasionally to keep the bread submerged.

Preheat oven to 350° F and put a kettle on to boil. Stir cherries into the bread mixture. With a slotted spoon, transfer bread to a buttered dish; pour liquid in bowl over the top. Turn the top layer of bread crust side up.

Set dish in a roasting pan and transfer to over. Pour boiling water into the roasting pan until it reaches about halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake until golden brown, about 50 minutes.