Chocolate and Squishy Berry Bread Pudding
If you’ve got stale or leftover bread in the house, don’t throw it out! You’re just about an hour away from a rich and delicious dessert, a dish that leftover bread never know it could achieve. I’m working with the sustainable chocolate and quinoa company Alter Eco to highlight what they’re calling a ‘climatarian’ diet: food that has little impact on the climate and planet as possible. A few aspects of the climatarian lifestyle include minimizing factory-farmed meat and highly processed foods as well as focusing on eating local and plant-based diets, but of course our favorite topic of minimizing food waste is important too.
Chocolate and Blueberry Bread Pudding
This Chocolate and Blueberry Bread Pudding is the perfect combination of organic chocolate and two ingredients that might have otherwise ended up in the trash: slightly past prime blueberries that my kids had deemed ‘too squishy’ and stale bread. I used a large rustic loaf that I had previously sliced into cubes and stashed in the freezer, but you could also use leftover donuts, croissants, brioche, etc. I’ve even made this with leftover hot dog and hamburger buns - just pull all your frozen bread out of the freezer (you’re freezing all your bread instead of throwing it out now, right?) and toss it all together!
That’s what I particularly like about this dish as a use-it-up recipe - it’s incredibly flexible based on what you have in the kitchen. Milk works, cream does too. Got a savory loaf? Use some sugar. Need to use up a sugary breaded treat? Leave the sugar out. Swap in just about any cut-up fruit you like, and add in anything from coconut flakes to M&Ms (hey, why not?). As always, the recipe is written flexibly so use your judgment and adapt according to what you have and what you like. And of course that flexibility extends towards topping your warm, chocolatey, just-out-of-the-oven bread pudding with a huge scoop of ice cream or whipped cream or jam or fruit sauce or anything at all you choose.
Chocolate and Berry Bread Pudding
Ingredients
- Roughly 6 cups cubed leftover or stale bread, donuts, croissants, etc.
- About 2 cups milk or cream, or a combination
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup sugar, or less, depending on the bread you're using
- 1 bar of chocolate of your choice, broken into pieces, or a large handful of chocolate chips
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup or more of berries or diced fruit (dried fruit like raisins or cranberries would work too)
- Optional: spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, a teaspoon of almond or vanilla extract
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 6-cup baking dish, or something of similar size.
- Place the bread chunks into a large mixing bowl.
- Put the milk or cream into a medium bowl, then crack the eggs inside. Whisk to combine, then add the sugar, if using. If you're using regular leftover bread, add 1/4 cup. If you're using something already sweetened, like glazed donuts, you might not need any sugar at all.
- Stir the sugar into the milk mixture, then pour the mixture over the bread cubes. Carefully stir everything so all the bread cubes get soaked in the milk mixture, then press the bread cubes down so they're all submerged in the milk. If at this point you find that not all the bread is getting soaked you can always pour a little more milk or cream into the bowl.
- Let the bread soak up the milk mixture for a little while (this is a good time to tidy up a bit), then stir in the chocolate pieces and the fruit. Transfer everything to the greased dish and put in the oven.
- Bake for 30-45 minutes, or until the top of the pudding is puffed up and golden but the whole thing jiggles just a bit when you shake it. Eat right away or at room temperature, all by itself or with some whipped cream or ice cream.
