Whole Wheat Bread Pudding with French Vanilla Whip
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 8
 
Not too sweet whole wheat bread pudding topped with smooth french vanilla whipped cream.
Ingredients
Pudding:
  • 1lb loaf homemade whole wheat bread (a day or two old)
  • ¼ cup butter + 1 Tbs
  • 1 cup half and half
  • 1½ cups 2% milk
  • ½ cup raisins
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • ½ brown sugar
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1½ tsp cinnamon
Whip
  • 1 pint heavy whipping cream
  • 1 cup 2% milk
  • 1 40oz pkg J-ELLO French Vanilla instant pudding mix
Instructions
Pudding:
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use 1 Tbs butter to grease a medium size cast iron skillet.
  2. Slice bread into 1 inch thick slices then cube into large chunks. Spread onto a jelly roll pan and toast in oven, stirring once, until starting to to dry out, about 10 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, in medium saucepan over low heat, combine half and half, milk, ¼ cup of butter and raisins. Heat until butter is melted, remove from heat and set aside.
  4. Mix together the brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon.
  5. In a large bowl slightly beat the eggs, add vanilla. Stir in toasted bread cubes and gently toss to coat. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over top and toss again to distribute evenly.
  6. Pour bread mixture into prepared pan. Pour milk mixture evenly over top of bread cubes. lightly press bread into milk mixture. Let sit for 5 minutes to soak up milk.
  7. Bake in preheated oven for 25 - 35 minutes until knife inserted in center of pan comes out clean.
  8. Serve warm with a large dollop of french vanilla whip.
Whip
  1. In small bowl beat the whipping cream until it starts to thicken. Beat in half of the milk and pudding mixture until well blended. Add remaining milk and pudding mix and beat until soft peak forms. It will be thick. Store in fridge until time to serve.
Notes
I highly recommend using a loaf of semi-dense unsliced bread. using pre-sliced store bread really makes a gummy bread pudding that is nothing like the real thing! Using a mix of golden and regular raisins makes it pretty!
Recipe by A Hen's Nest - NW PA Single Woman Mom Blog at https://ahensnest.com/2011/05/wheat-bread-pudding-french-vanilla-whip.html