Peaches and Cream Bread Pudding

We had a lot of leftover eggs from the ward Memorial Day breakfast so I was thinking about yummy foods that needed eggs. I have always loved bread pudding and it uses eggs. I noticed that the grocery stores have started getting fresh peaches so I searched online for recipes for bread pudding with fresh peaches. I looked at many recipes and mentally evaluated the expected final taste based on the ingredients. I found a recipe that looked like what I wanted. This foodnetwork recipe sounded really good to me except that seemed like it would make too much for the 9x13 pan I was using, so I scaled it down. Some of the recipes called for milk with the eggs and bread, while others used sweetened condensed milk, but this one called for half milk, half cream and more peach than other recipes. I decided that was the taste I was going for – more fresh peach and real cream.

Based on quantities of ingredients used in other recipes for a 9x13 pan, I scaled the ingredients as follows:

4 cups of bread cubes (diced bread slices)

1 1/3 lbs of fresh peaches pealed and cut into chunks

1 1/3 cup cream

1 1/3 cup milk

6 T butter

2/3 cup sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

For those new to cooking with fresh peaches, dip the peaches in boiling water for about 10-15 seconds and then cool. The skins are easily removed and the peaches can be cut into slices and then cut into chunks in the ½ to ¾ inch size range.

The peach processing instructions in the original recipe seemed too time consuming so I modified the procedure as follows:

Beat eggs in large mixing bowl

Add sugar, vanilla, cream and milk and combine with mixer.

Melt the butter and pour about a third of it in the bottom of the 9x13 baking dish. Coat the bottom of the dish going partway up the sides. I did this by tipping the dish and letting the melted butter run over the desired surface. Add bread chunks and peach chunks to the buttered baking dish. Pour in the egg/sugar/milk/cream mixture and make sure everything is evenly distributed. Drizzle the remaining melted butter over the top of the final mixture in the baking dish.

Bake uncovered at 350F for 45 min to an hour. Once the center is puffed up, it is done cooking, but going a little longer will help cook off some of the peach juice and make the pudding firmer. Once the pudding cools off it will become firm anyway. The recipe calls for a 20 minute cooling period, but you can eat sooner if you want it still hot.

The recipe called for an Amaretto sauce, but we already had some Carmel sauce left over from some pumpkin bred pudding Mom made before. Since that Carmel sauce was incredibly good, I just heated up the leftover Carmel sauce and poured it over the bread pudding. It was really good and the Carmel flavoring complimented the peach flavor very nicely.

This is what it looked like in my bowl with the Carmel sauce on it.

This is what the baked dish looked like after we had filled bowls.

I will definitely make this a few more times while fresh peaches are in season. A peach pie or two might also be in order.