Recipe for Holiday Bread Pudding

Odds are you bought more of a certain ingredient than others. But after the dust settled and all the food was packed away (pun intended), something was bound to be left over. Actual leftovers from sides made and the ingredients used to make them can leave you wondering what to do. In my house, I still had the dregs from making the cranberry sauce and fruits left from the aromatics used to flavor the turkey and stuffing. In addition, there were many rolls left untouched. This year I decided to buy packs of Brioche Knots from Trader Joe’s. These rolls ended up being the basis for the bread pudding recipe that follows. This is not only a holiday friendly recipe but also a pantry friendly one.

As defined by the Free Online Dictionary, aromatics are anything "Having an aroma; fragrant or sweet-smelling."

Examples of aromatics include herbs. But for some more interesting aromatics, check out this site: The Haus of Waft

• 4 cups dry bread
• 1 (1.5 oz) pack of raisins
• 4 eggs
• 2 ½ cups milk
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ TBS vanilla extract
• 1 tsp orange zest
• Juice of ½ the orange
• 2 TBS cranberry sauce or dregs from making sauce
• ½ apple diced
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1 TBS butter

1. Dry out bread overnight
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
3. Grease a 9x13 pan
4. Take dry bread and rip bread into pieces
5. Toss raisins with bread in a bowl
6. In separate bowl, beat eggs
7. Add milk, sugar, extract, zest, juice, cranberry, apple, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
8. Place bread mix in greased pan
9. Pour wet mix over bread mix
10. Dot the top of the mix with butter
11. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

The above recipe was adapted from Better Homes and Gardens’ New Cook Book 75^th Anniversary Edition. The original recipe was low fat and did not call for any butter, orange, nutmeg, apple or, of course, cranberry sauce.