Bread Pudding With Chocolate Chips

After a particularly hectic, stressful week, all I just wanted to do was savor every minute of the weekend either by lounging around, visiting family, and baking a particularly easy dessert. The whole saturday afternoon went by with me just in front of the tv and doing absolutely nothing - a rarity these days and I just wanted to relish every moment of it! But alas, my baking crave still crept on.

A super easy baking is all I wanted and looking at my copy of How To Be A Domestic Goddess, I chanced upon her recipe (and nice pic!) of Pain Au Chocolat Pudding that looks very much inviting and comforting, and would just be perfect for a lazy saturday afternoon. The problem? I didnt have Pain Au Chocolat, and so I modified it a bit using the day-old bread I had on hand and my Callebaut mini-chocolate chips - with good results!

Bread Pudding With Chocolate Chips
Modified from Pain Au Chocolat Pudding Recipe of Nigella Lawson

10 pandesal (local small everyday bread)
About 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips (or more!)
2 1/4 cups milk
3 1/4 cups heavy cream (I used whipped cream)
3 tbsp sugar
1 large egg
4 large egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325F. Butter an ovenproof dish with a capacity of approximately 6 cups. Cut up bread into roughly 1-inch slices and arrange them in the dish, sprinkling it around with chocolate chips.

Meanwhile, put the milk and cream in a pan and bring to near-boiling point. Whisk the eggs, yolks and sugar in a large wide-mouthed measuring cup. When the milk and cream are nearly boiling, pour over the eggs and sugar, whicsking continously. Add vanilla and then pour over the slices of bread and leave to soak for 10 minutes. Transfer to a preheated oven and cook about 45 minutes, or until the pudding is softly set.

You may replace heavy cream and milk with 4 1/2 cups of light cream. At first I was worried as I seemed to have a lot of liquid, but turns out the bread slices have to be generously soaked, the more generous the better! If you plan to halve the mixture into two separate smaller containers like I did, reduce the baking time to 30-35 minutes.

This is seriously good, though I have to admit the chocolate chips contributed so much to the X-factor! Em's abuelita however still makes the best pudding (with raisins) and one of these days, Im gonna head over to her house and see how she makes it and try to comprehend the quantities of the ingredients. Yes, like a true veteran in the kitchen, she doesnt use any measurement and the pudding just comes out as yummy as the last one she baked!