Recipe: German Bread Pudding

I have been trying to nail down my grandmother's bread pudding recipe for literally years. Unfortunately, asking her doesn't do much good as she never measures anything. Watching doesn't necessarily work because she makes it a little differently every time and doesn't stop to wait for you to measure what she's throwing into the mix, so here is the closest approximation I've found that results in a finished product close to what I'm used to eating. My grandmother always served this as the entrée with tomato soup as an appetizer.

 

The base for this recipe comes from this site on Traditional German Cookery, from the recipes for Bread Pudding (Old, old recipe) and Weissbrot Pudding (White Bread Pudding) by Selma Dalgety.

 

Ingredients:

3-4 cups dried bread cubes (or enough to fill your pan and then some)

6 small green apples, sliced into small chunks

2 cups whole milk, scalded

1/2 cup butter, melted

4 eggs, beaten so the yolks combine with the whites

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit.

Put bread cubes and sliced apples in a big bowl. Combine all of the other ingredients in another bowl and whisk for no more than one minute or until all ingredients have combined. Pour the liquid over the bread and apples as evenly as possible. Use your hands to mix the bread and apples until all the liquid has been absorbed into the bread. Let is sit in the fridge for at least one hour (3-4 hours is preferable) until the mixture has been absorbed partially or entirely into the bread. Grease a 9 by 13 inch pan and then fill it with the mixture and smash mixture down with your hands until it is level with the rim of the pan. Put on center rack and bake for 40-45 min. or until golden brown and crispy. Serve with canned fruit in syrup (family favorites include plums - which my grandmother used to can herself, mandarin oranges, or pears).