Courtesy of Chef Oonagh Williams of Royal Temptations

I used to love making this with Portuguese sweet bread rolls or Challah or Brioche bread. I loved a local Portuguese sweet bread roll that I can’t eat now. It is almost impossible to find gluten-free versions of this bread, so I substituted an Udi’s bagel and it doesn’t disintegrate and doesn’t have any funny taste.

I like to mix the bread pudding ingredients in a glass bowl/jug, cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, spray the baking dish and then pour in ingredients. This makes it far easier to clean the dish. We find that this is delicious even with fat free milk and egg substitute, which is such a huge saving in calories and still very enjoyable to eat.

Ingredients:

• 2 Udi’s gluten-free plain bagels or about 7 oz. of gluten-free Portuguese sweet bread, challah or brioche. Cut into cubes about 1/2-1 inch square
• 1/2 cup cream/half and half
• 1+1/2 cup fat-free milk – or use 2 cups whole milk in total (I’ve only used almond milk for milk and the coconut creamer for cream substitutes)
• 1/2 cup liquid egg substitute plus 2 large eggs or 4 eggs in total and no liquid egg substitute
• 2 tsp. gluten-free vanilla extract (I use Costco’s labeled gluten-free)
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup sugar or more to taste
• 1/2 –1 cup gluten-free mini semi sweet chocolate chips.
• Sugar and sliced almonds for sprinkling on top

Directions:

1. Stir vanilla, pinch of salt and sugar into milk so sugar starts dissolving.
2. Beat eggs and add to milk mix.
3. Mix bread cubes and chocolate together in greased, deep 9-10” pie plate or in 8×8” square brownie pan.
4. Pour over milk mixture and allow to stand for about 10 minutes (or covered overnight in fridge) for bread to absorb liquid. Sprinkle very lightly with sugar for a crustier top, plus almonds for visual appeal and some crunch.
5. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. The bread pudding should rise like a cake, be light golden brown on top but still wobble. The middle should not have any “free” liquid sloshing around but should still look moist.

Options:

1. To make bread pudding look more like French toast, cut bread into slices and layer one layer of bread slices, sprinkle with chocolate chips, top with second layer of bread slices, pour over milk mix, sprinkle with sugar, stand and bake. Add a few teaspoons of seedless raspberry jam to middle of dish for extra burst of flavor. Don’t put frozen raspberries in center, they really slow down the cooking.
2. Serve with fresh sliced strawberries, raspberries, peaches, fruit sauce. Some bacon or sausage on the side is really tasty. Or just plain maple syrup.
3. Fortwo people, shown in photo:For this quantity I use a quarter of the recipe (1/2 bagel, one egg etc) in a small pyrex casserole of 2 cup capacity. Place on baking dish and bake in preheated oven for about 30-40 minutes.