Apple Cinnamon Bread Pudding

A big part of the French diet is bread and after having lived in France for awhile I now have found myself eating at least twice the amount of bread that I ate back in the States. How could anyone resist the urge of buying so much bread when you have a bakery at every street corner, literally. Which is why I have found myself sometimes tossing out bread that has gotten way too hard to bite through. The other day though, I was looking through recipes and saw a recipe for bread pudding. Genius! Yes, I found the very simplistic recipe for bread pudding utter genius. After having looked at a few more recipes I decided to dive right in, blindly. So for all of you out there with stale bread crying out to you every time you look at it here is a recipe that will turn that frown upside down. Enjoy :) p.s the bread pudding is at its best a few days after being baked.

- - - - - -recipe- - - - - - 

Wooden Spoon original 

Ingredients

1 loaf of your favorite bread that is stale, I used whole wheat sesame bread

4 cups milk 

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp ginger 

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

3 slices of toast, un-toasted, cubed

1/3 cup brown sugar 

3/4 tsp cinnamon

2 golden delicious apples, cubed the same size as the bread

Ready, set, BAKE!

1. With a serrated knife, cube the loaf bread into 1-inch cubes. 

2. In a large bowl mix the milk, sugar, ginger, cinnamon and vanilla extract until completely combined.

3. Place the cubes of bread into the milk mixture and let them soak up the milk for about 35 minutes or until they have absorbed the desired amount of milk.

4. In a medium bowl mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together. Gently toss the cubed apples until completely coated; set aside. 

5. Add the cubed slices of toast into the milk mixture 5 minutes before removing the loaf cubes out of the bowl. 

6. Pre-heat oven to 350*F and butter a 9x12in pan. 

7. Once the 5 minutes are up, drain about 1/4 to a 1/3 cup of the milk mixture and discard. 

8. Pour half of the soaked bread and the remaining milk mixture into the prepared pan, then pour in half of the apples, then the bread cubes and lastly the remaining apples on top as your last layer.

9. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and the apples have softened.