Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

You may remember that I discovered a lovely blog that taught me how to make challah bread (see I Holler for Challah, if you missed it). She mentions in her recipe that you can add dried fruit to your bread, which I have done before, but as soon as I read that, my mind immediately ran to chocolate. If you can insert dried fruit, surely you could do the same with chocolate chips. So, the other day I decided to test my theory by rolling the chips inside each of the 3 ropes that make the braided bread. This came out pretty well, but in the future I think I would sprinkle a few chips between the strands as I braid them, just to distribute a few more chips around. Unfortunately, we weren't doing a good job of eating this delicious bread very fast, and it was a little bit dry, so I feared that it would soon mold. Then I remembered how to save stale bread: bread pudding!

My very scientific search of the web found many bread pudding recipes, and a few chocolate bread pudding recipes, but no chocolate chip bread pudding recipes, so I decided to invent it. I used the "Best Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce" recipe on AllRecipes.com because vanilla sauce is very important to bread pudding, in my opinion, and because it didn't call for insane amounts of eggs. I then substituted out the cup of raisins for a cup of milk chocolate chips- who wants raisins in a chocolate dish? Not this kid. Here is the ingredient list for the bread pudding:

• 3 eggs, beaten

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar

• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/4 cup butter, melted

• 3 cups whole milk

• 10 slices hearty farmhouse-style bread, toasted and cut into cubes ...or chocolate chip challah

• 1 cup chocolate chips

I started out by cubing my remaining chocolate chip challah. I might cube them a bit smaller next time.

waste not, want not!

After turning the oven on at 375, I started to get the pudding ingredients in order in a large bowl. The bowl needs to fit you bread pieces later, so plan accordingly. You simply whisk together the eggs, milk, cinnamon, butter, and sugars- no need for electric beaters. 

ready for whisking

 Then add in your chocolate chips. The cinnamon mades the batter look spotty, not the chocolate.

chocolate time!

The recipe doesn't really call for it, but web consensus is to let your bread soak in the creamy pudding mixture for at least 10 minutes, if not longer. I stirred mine a couple of times to rotate which pieces were at the bottom, and to distribute the chocolate chips, which tend to sink. 

soaking time

While my bread was soaking and oven was warming, I got my ingredients ready for the vanilla sauce. You'll need: 

• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 pinch ground cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

I melted the butter and kept it separate until I was ready to make the sauce, once the pudding was nearly done baking. It'll take around 10 minutes to thicken, so build that into your baking timeline so you won't have to wait on the sauce once the pudding is done. 

ready for action

Once the bread had soaked a while, I Pam'd a casserole dish and spooned the bread chunks into it, then poured the remaining liquid and chips over the whole thing. You don't want too much bread sticking out the top of the liquid or it may get overly brown. I baked for 25 minutes (convection) and then put the casserole lid on for the final 25. I took it off again at the end and cooked another 5-ish minutes until I was sure it was done. Checking for done-ness is a little tricky since a pudding is a bit liquidy and the chocolate complicates things, but I inserted a knife in the center and stopped cooking when it came out not completely dry, but mostly, and was pretty clean too. Here is the finished product: 

Mmmmm!

Extreme pudding closeup! 

After it cooled a little, I spooned portions into bowls and smothered them with the vanilla sauce. This was a little slice of heaven. It's not the most traditional bread pudding, but it's pretty darn tasty. 

Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce

I Holler for Challah

Greetings, friends. If you know me, then you know one of my enduring loves in life is bread. I've hardly ever met a carb I didn't like, so I was really exited when East Wichita got our first Great Harvest Bread Company in the mid- '90s. For those who aren't familiar, it's a chain of locally-managed bread stores who make their wares fresh every day and have a menu board of amazing carbo-licious concoctions. We tried a lot of bread there that we wouldn't ordinarily have run into, and one of my favorite new types was Challah, the traditional Jewish egg bread. It's lightly sweet and pairs great with sweet and salty spreads, and makes amazing French toast.

Fast forward 15ish years. There is a Great Harvest in Northern Virginia, but it's a solid 30-45 minute drive to a part of the 'burbs I rarely get to, so I think we've been there once. In my continued trolling through blogs linked to Pinterest and blogs linked to those blogs, I stumbled upon Food Wanderings. This is a lovely blog by an Israeli woman who now lives in the U.S. She did a guest post over at Indonesia Eats for a Honey Challah Bread. I was so excited when I found this that I made it 24 hours later. This is absolutely a Food Wanderings recipe (which is dairy-free for any Kosher eaters), but my value added is to covert the measurements completely to the US system (I had to do a lot of googling to covert the grams since I don't yet have a food sale) and to provide a few more pictures.

For the basic 2-loaf recipe you'll need:

7.5 cups all-purpose flour (preferably unbleached)
5 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup sugar in the raw
1 Tbl salt
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil (+ more for coating dough)
1.5- 2 cups mineral water (I used seltzer instead)

1 more egg for egg wash

Optional ingredients:
handful of golden raisins, raisins, or other dried fruit
sesame seeds

Follow the Honey Challah link above to find her directions. I won't reproduce them, but I'll post my photos below to illustrate each step, since there really aren't any in-process photos over there to guide you.

ingredients!

busting out the dough hook for the first time- this is the flour & yeast mixture

Mixing to incorporate all the wet ingredients

Finished dough- that is some sticky stuff! 

Here I'll say that when I removed the dough from the mixing bowl the first time to oil it, I lightly floured my work surface and was very glad I did. This dough is so sticky, but mostly sticks to itself until you rub the canola on it and the mixing bowl. My dough was pretty thick so I used the whole 2 cups of water and thought about using more, but I didn't. 

Oiled dough, covered and left for 1+ hours, risen dough

 

Dividing the dough- I cut mine in two and then each one in three.

I rolled my pieces out flat with a rolling pin and then curled them into cylinder shapes, then braided them. 

The braided strands

I curled the braid into a circle and tucked then end under, per her instructions. 

I let my dough rise for around 3 hours instead of 1 because I went to the movies, so I think it may have spread out a little more than standard. Next, I put on the egg wash, which is important for that beautiful color and shine on the loaf. I skipped the sesame seeds from the original. 

Finished loaf, smells amazing! 

Enjoying a slice