Tara Riddle: Buttermilk bread pudding with caramel sauce (recipe)

What do you do with one stale wheat roll, one freezer burned hamburger bun, and four dry hotdog buns? You whip up some buttery buttermilk bread pudding.

Have any of you guys ever watched the show “Chopped,” on the Food Network? Back when people actually watched TV and not a streaming service, there was the Food Network. One of my favorite shows – I might have just dated myself here – was “Chopped.”

On “Chopped,” contestants were given a basket of weird and basic ingredients and they went up against each other to see who could win $10,000 by making the best and most creative dish.

I love to play “Chopped” in my own kitchen. So, when I realized I had all of this stale bread that I didn’t want to just throw away to the birds, the magic ingredients to make Bread Pudding popped into my head. This is a very versatile dish. Most people have the basic ingredients to make it already in their kitchen. You can keep it simple, or you can add berries, or nuts, or both.

For my bread pudding I used candied cashews and a sprinkle of frozen blueberries. For yours, you might want to add craisins, raisins, apples, peaches. The list goes on for the items that can be added to elevate your bread pudding into something magical.

Bread Pudding:

6 cups of diced stale bread (the more stale the better) (any bread will work)

3 Tablespoons melted butter

4 Eggs (beaten)

3 Cups buttermilk

¾ Cup sugar

3 Tablespoons cinnamon (you can do less, I like more)

1 Teaspoon vanilla

Caramel Sauce:

1 Stick butter

1 Cup brown sugar

¾ Cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan. The next step is dicing your stale bread into one-inch chunks and putting it into a mixing bowl. Now, if you have nuts or craisins or whatever your choice, add this into your bread chunk bowl. Melt butter in the microwave and drizzle over bread chunks. Give it a nice toss.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Next, pour this mixture on top of the diced bread chunks. We don’t want to mix this up too much. As a matter of fact, I use my hands and just give it all a quick toss just to make sure each bread chunk is soaked in the buttermilk mixture. Pour this into your buttered baking dish.

Bake uncovered for 40-45 minutes and prepare for heaven, which is the making of the caramel sauce. Get out a small non-stick skillet and turn on low to medium heat. Put one stick of butter in and let it slowly melt. Get a nice wire whisk for these next few steps. When butter is melted, add brown sugar and cream. Continue whisking without stopping. You will start to see this beautiful brown ribbon of delight swirling into your butter. It’s gorgeous.

Whisk until the color is a golden brown and then stop whisking and start watching. Keep the heat setting on low-medium as this caramel concoction starts to bubble and boil. Just let it be. Don’t whisk it and don’t touch it for 3 minutes. Then take the now caramel off of the heat and give it a little swirl. Pour this mixture into a microwave safe container for storage. Let it sit for a few hours and come to room temperature. This will be very hot and will burn you, so be careful. As the caramel cools, it will thicken. You can always reheat in the microwave starting with 20 seconds intervals at a time.

When the bread pudding is finished…. Let it cool a bit to set and serve with a caramel drizzle. This is a very sweet dessert so a preemptive move would be a nice scoop of vanilla cream. I hope this brunch treat or after dinner dessert does not disappoint.