Nutella Bread Pudding

January 21st, 2010 by justJENN

I am going stir crazy being stuck in the house due to the storm of the century. This is NOT typical Los Angeles weather. Slightly depressed and freezing, I turned to my pantry for warmth. I found it in old bread crusts (thanks to the Hello Kitty sandwich making-fest we had!) and a jar of Nutella. Ah, Nutella. My breakfast of choice everyday when I lived in Italy. Pure comfort.

I should teeter on the edge of sanity more often. I come up with some pretty good recipes in the end.

ingredients:
approx. 8 cups of bread crusts, cubed
2-1/2 cups milk
½ cup heavy cream
4 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
¾ cup sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
3 Tablespoons nutella

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

You are going to make EIGHT tiny bread puddings, so grease 8 small single serving ramekins with melted butter.

As for the bread crusts, I cut mine into small cubes, not gigantor size, seeing as how they are small ramekins. Equally portion out your cubed bread crusts into the buttered ramekins. Set these aside.

Now you’re going to start the custard. In a bowl, whisk the milk, heavy cream, eggs and vanilla. Carefully add the sugar and the cocoa powder. Stir well – this make take some mixing as the cocoa powder will clump a little, do your best it doesn’t have to be totally incorporated, just enough.

Now stir the nutella into the custard mixture. Oh, Nutella. So creamy and delicious. How I love it on a piece of crispy toast, the perfect crunch – just heaven in the morning with a cup of tea. Oh, hi. Enough daydreaming, back to the recipe. Again, the Nutella won’t completely break down – just keep stirring until most of it has been combined. The rest will probably sink to the bottom.

Place the ramekins on a cookie sheet, this is only to catch possible spillage and to make it easy to transport to your oven. No one wants a chocolate-y mess on the floor.

Carefully pour the custard over the bread in each ramekin. You’ll get more in there than you think, once the bread starts soaking it up. You’ll see that some of the nutella has settled to the bottom – no problem – just pour it right on top of the bread. Trust me, it will be great when it’s all done baking. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Bake for 40 minutes in your preheated oven. Let cool just a bit and if I may be so bold, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Comfort food, indeed.