S'mores Bread Pudding

When you have bread going stale what do you make?  Why bread  pudding of course!  And if you're me S'mores bread pudding to be exact! :)

I remembered drooling over Peabody's photos of her S'mores Bread Pudding awhile back and new this was the perfect opportunity to give it a go. 

 

I checked out the recipe since it had been a while and I couldn't  find the printout in the stack of ten thousand sheets I have lying in a mountainous pile.What I found after checking the recipe was that she used a Hot Chocolate bread.  Well, I wasn't making one and the whole point of the bread pudding was to use up my leftover baguette.  Not to be deterred I decided to adapt the recipe to suit my purpose and taste.  I think I did pretty good though I'm sure had I followed her recipe I would have also been happy. 

S’mores Bread Pudding (my adaptations in red)

1 Guatemalan Hot Chocolate Bread (recipe follows)- cut up into square pieces (I used 1 loaf of french bread.)

1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ cup whole milk  (I used 2%)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 egg yolks
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

10 graham crackers
¾ cup mini chocolate chips (semi-sweet Guittard chocolate chips)
2 cups marshmallows (give or take, the amount is really up to you, I used minis)

Butter a 8-x-8-inch pan.  (1 souffle dish)
Whisk together the heavy whipping cream, milk, sugar, egg yolks, egg and vanilla extract. Set aside, this is the custard mixture.  (I cut up my baguette and added it to the custard mixture.   I left the bread soaking in the custard and stirred it occasionally until most of the custard was soaked up by the bread.)
Sprinkle bread pieces on the bottom of the pan so that the pan is covered. (I layered the custard soaked bread, graham crackers, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips in the souffle dish.  One layer of bread pudding, one layer of graham cracker, liberally sprinkled with mini marshmallows,chocolate chips, and another layer of bread pudding followed by the graham crackers.)  Break graham crackers in to pieces (I keep mine in whole pieces. Just breaking off pieces to fit my dish.) and sprinkle evenly half of them on top of the bread. Sprinkle evenly half of the chocolate chips as well. Add 1/3 of the custard mixture and press bread down so that the custard soaks in. You may need more custard depending on how dry your bread is. Then add bread pieces again, followed by remaining graham crackers and chocolate chips. Add another 1/3 of the custard mixture and again press the bread down to make sure all the bread pieces get soaked with custard. Keep adding the custard until all of the piece are soak through with custard. You will most likely have both bread pieces and custard left over (I didn't have any of either leftover), feel free to make a mini one.
Place dish in a water bath and bake at 350F for 1 hour. After the first 20 minutes, place aluminum foil on top of the bread pudding to prevent the graham cracker pieces and top of the bread from browning too much.
When the bread pudding comes out of the oven, immediately (I added more chocolate chips and then the marshmallows) spread marshmallows on top to allow them to melt. You can use a kitchen torch (Joe used our kitchen torch) or place under a broiler to get the toasted marshmallow look. Top with chocolate syrup (The kids and I don't do a lot of chocolate so we left off the syrup.) and serve warm (or hot or cold for me).

The sitter, Miss Karolyn and the twins really liked the it.  Babygirl was too slow so she missed out.  Devon, my unofficial taste tester said it was good but that the Bananas Foster one was better.  (I think it was the Bananas Foster sauce that put it over the edge!) I admit to liking this better after it cooled substantially. When I first tasted it still warm (hot) from the oven I didn't like how "wet" the bread still was  (I DO NOT like mushy, soggy  textures! EW!) but after it cooled to room temperature it was perfect, moist with a yummy custardy flavor but not soggy.

I broke out my new kitchen torch and (finally) used it or rather Joe did to toast the marshmallows.  I was a little timid and kept worrying we'd burn the house down or at least each other.  He did a good job.  Did ya see all those lovely toasted marshmallows?

**Please let me know if I missed something in the recipe or if I didn't explain myself well.

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