Chocolate Bread Pudding Recipe--You're welcome!

Every holiday,the upscale grocery store I live near adds a couple of seasonal  items to their already much-too-tempting take-out offerings. For about six weeks you can get a pumpkin trifle, a pumpkin pudding, noodle kugel, and my favorite, chocolate bread pudding with caramel sauce. Yes, it tastes just as decadent as it sounds.

Every time I buy a chunk of this deliciousness, I feel guilty though.  Because I make an incredible chocolate bread pudding.  If you want to dress it up, you can hit it with some whipped cream, but adding sauce would just be gilding the lily.  Here's the recipe.

INCREDIBLE CHOCOLATE BREAD PUDDING RECIPE

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Enough bread to fill a baking dish—torn into small pieces

2 cups milk

¼ cup butter

2/3 cup light brown sugar

3 eggs

¾ cup chocolate chips

2 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the milk and butter in a saucepan, stirring until the butter is melted.  Cool slightly.

Beat the sugar and spices into the eggs until frothy.  Add the vanilla extract.

Combine the egg mixture and the milk mixture slowly.  (Make sure the milk isn’t too hot or the raw eggs will curdle.)

Mix in the bread and turn everything into a baking dish that has been greased or treated with non-stick spray.

Don’t pack the bread down too tightly or the “pudding” will compact and get really dense instead of staying moist and fluffy with those delicious buttery, crunchy bits.

Bake for 45-55 minutes until the “pudding” is set.