Butterscotch Bread Pudding

Joe, the chef at the cafeteria, makes caramel bread pudding that everyone raves about. I have studiously avoided it because....well.....I had a bad experience with bread pudding when I was a teenager.

I was at a friends house, and his mom served bread pudding that took 'pudding' literally. It was mushy and bland and I barely choked it down, smiling with every bite. Somehow I was able to be polite at other people's houses even though I was a complete punk at home. My mom must be a saint to have put up with me.

So I have been completely flabbergasted when people at work would go buy some bread pudding and then thoroughly enjoy every bite. Surely they weren't being polite - they never make an effort to be polite any other time. What was this fascination with bread pudding?

Finally, I gave in and tried a piece. It wasn't the slimy glob I remembered, but firm and sweet and deliciously caramel. Since I think it costs too much to buy food from the cafeteria every day, Kevin and I decided to try a bread pudding recipe for our Valentine's Day dessert.

Here's the cast of characters. OK. So bread pudding isn't the most healthy dessert ever. It's even worse when it serves as breakfast, like it did this morning. This version has less calories than some by substituting applesauce for half the butter and skim milk for the cream. We tried to find butterscotch chips with no hydrogenated oils, but our searching was fruitless so we just gave in and bought the ones that were available.

Here's the slimy mess before it goes into the oven. It looks strange but smells pretty darn good.


Oooohhh...and here they are right out of the oven.

How sweet. Kevin shared his heart with me.

Butterscotch Bread Pudding
1 loaf cinnamon raisin bread, torn into small pieces
4 cups skim milk
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup applesauce
3 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup butterscotch chips

Melt the butter and butterscotch chips in a large bowl. Stir in all the other ingredients except the bread. When the sauce has an even consistency, stir in the torn bread pieces. Bake in a 9X13 greased pan at 350 degrees for between 1 hour and 1 hour 20 minutes, depending on how solid you like it. I like a less gooey, more french toast like texture so I baked it towards the end of the time spectrum. Enjoy it warm or cold. Or, have a piece warm and another piece cold.