Butterscotch Bread Pudding

Butterscotch Bread Pudding - made March 29, 2014 from Kitch Me

I ran a 10K this morning. It was my first race in several years. I used to run a lot more races a few years ago but burned out after my third half marathon so while I kept up with the running (more or less), I stopped with the races. Until earlier this year when, thanks to the enabling efforts of a runner friend plus a temporary loss of sanity, I decided I would sign up for my fourth half marathon. It's on my bucket list to run a half in under 2 hours. The closest I've come to was 2:04 when I did the San Jose Rock n Roll Half Marathon. That was on a mostly flat course and was the first half I'd ever run. I ran two more after that but they were in San Francisco and if you've ever been to SF, you know for the small land mass where they've got to chart 13.1 miles throughout the city, hills are inevitable. The best time I've done on a half in San Francisco was 2:08 because of those damned hills.

So I knew I had to choose a course with flat terrain if I had any hope of a sub-2 half. Which is why I signed up for the Disneyland Half Marathon in August. But since I hadn't run a race in the last 2 years and Disney needs a qualifying time to determine which corral you're put in, I had to run a 10K before June. Hence my 10K this morning. Otherwise I'd be put in the very last corral with the walkers. Erk. No thanks. Race report potentially to follow in a future blog post (I haven't decided yet).

What does all this have to do with Butterscotch Bread Pudding? Um, nothing. The closest connection is probably carbo-loading --> bread --> bread pudding. Except I made this a week ago and didn't eat it for the 10K as fuel nor should I probably advocate it for training. In any case, the main reason I made this is because I had a lot of milk to use up and this called for 4 cups. Which actually turned out to be too much. I've made bread pudding before and this is a lot of liquid for the amount of bread in the recipe. I ended up using over a pound of challah and even then I still had a lot of liquid. Contrary to the directions, I let the bread soak for several hours before I baked it. I don't think I baked it long enough although it had puffed up and the top was getting dry. When I sliced into it after it had cooled, there was still some liquid on the bottom that hadn't baked in yet the top was dry. Not a good combo. The taste was good and the top half of the bread pudding the next day was better since it had softened. But the bottom half was wet. Not moist but wet. To modify this recipe, I would recommend using a pound of bread and only 3/4 of the liquid mixture. Let it soak for several hours or overnight before baking.

10 3/4-oz day-old loaf bread, torn into small pieces (I used over a pound of challah)
4 cups milk
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup butterscotch chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 13-inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine bread, milk, brown sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and butterscotch chips; mixture should be the consistency of oatmeal. Pour into prepared pan. (I let it soak in the mixture for over 4 hours.)
3. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, until nearly set. Serve warm or cold.