Nutty bread butter pudding!!!

Hello everyone! It has been the longest break. I'm sorry it took me so long to make a blog post. I've missed cooking so very very much! I moved back to Bangalore a few weeks back and I was overjoyed to be back home. The last few weeks have been hectic and were usually spent feasting on delicious treats at family and friends' places. I'm sort of figuring out my own schedule amidst the chaos so that I find enough time to get back to my passion of blogging and cooking.

Making bread puddings are incredibly simple. They make the best homemade desserts. They simply melt in your mouth and are best when slightly gooey. The one I made was more like a nutty and creamy bread pudding that tastes good both when it's hot or cold. I prefer it cold because then you don't have to the pain of burning your tongue. The layers of buttered bread give it a more croissant taste but then again the buttered milk bread brings back the memories of my school days, when Amma would make bread butter sandwiches with good old Amul butter. So here's the recipe for my nutty butter bread pudding:

Ingredients:

• 100 gm pack of Amul butter
• 1 cup of mixed nuts ( I used almonds and cashews )
• 1 loaf of milk bread ( the Iyengar bakery kind of bread )
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups of milk
• 2 tbsps of brandy (optional)
  
• 3/4 can of condensed milk
  
• 7 tbsps of sugar
• 2 tbs Cocoa powder
• 1tsp Nutmeg

Directions:

• Make sure the butter is soft at room-temperature.
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• Apply butter on all the slices of bread.
  
  
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• Cut each slice of bread into fours.
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• Butter a large dish.
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• Layer the triangles of buttered bread till 3/4ths of the dish is full.
  
  
• In a pan, melt about 2 tbsps of butter and roast the nuts in it.
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• Add 2 tbsps of sugar and mix till it all combines together.
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• Pull the pan out of the heat and add 2 tbsps of brandy (optional).
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• Add 1tsp of nutmeg to the mixture.
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• Once the mixture cools, grind the sugared nuts till you get a coarse powder.
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• Spread the mixture over the layered bread.
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• Layer the remaining bread over the mixture. Press the bread firmly down to compress the layers and make it more compact.
• In a blender fold in the eggs, milk, 1/2 can of condensed milk and remaining sugar.
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• Gently and carefully pour the liquid over the bread in the dish.
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•  If the dish is full to the brim, puncture the bread gently with a fork and let the bread absorb the liquid before emptying the remaining amount of liquid into the dish.
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• Let the bread pudding settle before baking it at 200 degrees Celsius.
• I realized only later that my oven here lets go of a little bit of heat while baking, so it took me close to an hour to bake the pudding. I'm sure it does not take that long; just make sure that the top slices of bread have browned nicely; that is the key to a good bread pudding.
• In a pan heat a little bit (1 tbsp) of butter and pour in the remaining condensed milk. I added some vanilla bean for flavour. Heat the mixture till the condensed milk bubbles slightly. Pour the mixture over the center of the baked bread pudding. Puncture small holes with a fork so that the condensed milk seeps into the layers of the bread pudding. This ensures the gooey-ness of the bread pudding and makes sure that every slice will have a molten butterscotch flavour. Dust the top with a bit of cocoa powder.
  
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• Done!