rhubarb bread pudding

Spring teased us for weeks here on the coast. We would bask in the warmth of the spring sunshine only to be brought down to earth the next day with a cold blast. I do believe we actually went right from winter to summer…well almost-summer, that season, too, likes to taunt me.

We know that spring did, indeed, make an appearance because the fiddleheads and rhubarb have made their annual advent. This post comes a little late, but around here, we are still seeing some rhubarb about. If you don’t have fresh rhubarb, you can use frozen. I like to package it up in two cup portions for the freezer. Unfortunately, after the two desserts, I only have two bags put away.

The last couple of weekends, we had guests for lunch. You know what that means? Dessert. We don’t typically eat dessert unless it’s a special occasion or guests are coming. My Love happens to adore bread pudding. Me? Not so much. However, I had some leftover rolls and we were given a bunch of rhubarb. I’ve never made a bread pudding, but I was willing to give it a go.

I scanned Pinterest to see what I could find. I ended up taking ideas from a few different sources (food.com, seasonsandsuppers.ca, and all recipes.com) to make the best of what I had. Time is at a premium on Sunday mornings, so I prepped rhubarb and bread the night before.

Rhubarb Bread Pudding

I began by cubing my leftover bread (I had about 6 rolls and a couple of tea biscuits). I would say you need around:

6 cups day-old bread, cubed

Place bread into a greased casserole dish. Wouldn’t it be cute to serve it in individual dishes?

I then warmed:

1 1/2 cups milk (I used whole milk)
1/4 cup butter

Once butter has melted–do not bring to a boil–pour over the bread to soak while you prepare the egg mixture.

fullsizeoutput_e07 — Aren’t these eggs beautiful? I love all the variations. We have some lovely friends with laying hens who keep us in farm-fresh eggs. This is something we really miss from the days when we had a hobby farm.

Mix together:

4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups of sugar (I used half white, half brown)
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon

To the egg mixture, add:

4 cups of chopped rhubarb

Stir this into the bread mixture and top with sliced almonds or nuts of choice. You may also wish to sprinkle sugar on top. It looks so pretty, even I want to eat it.

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until set. This is best served warm. You can serve it with vanilla ice cream like we did, or you could make more work for yourself and try your hand at a delicious creme anglaise like they did here, or this yummy looking toffee sauce. I think I would like bread pudding if it had the toffee sauce.

I don’t have a full picture of the finished product, as we dug into it before I thought to snap a pic. As I said, I do not like bread pudding, though I did take a bite to test it. I thought it tasted good as far as bread pudding goes. My Love, who is a traditionalist, said it was alright, but real bread pudding does not have rhubarb. Our guests enjoyed it, though I suppose they may have been feigning out of politeness. 🙂 I probably would not use biscuits again. They tend to break down too much.

Regardless, I’m glad I tried it. It’s a little different way to use that rhubarb. My df girl made her dad a lovely strawberry-rhubarb pie for Father’s Day the next weekend. I think that traditional use of rhubarb pleased my Love and made up for his semi-disappointment the week before.