Bread Pudding

Yet another year is passing off the lane of life and  we all are getting ready to welcome a new year with mixed emotions.  A New year always brings in nostalgic memories of the bygone days, sadness of losing a portion of your life...on one hand...,excitement and anticipations about the coming days..on the other.

All home-cooks out there must be busy planning for the new-year eve dinner. Usually when making a feast I confront with a problem..and I'm sure , if not all ..at least a few  others too go through the same situation. I spend enormous time planning and preparing starters and main course dishes..and end up in making very simple dessert.  And most likely the guests also hardly enjoy an elaborate dessert after a heavy dinner. 
Here I'm with simple bread pudding recipe which u can prepare without much effort. And usually bread puddings impress me for a special reason . You don't have to ransack the store shelves reading names that look like Greek for the ingredients. Instead just  pull them out of your refrigerator.


Ingredients
1.  White Bread slices- 5

2. Whole milk- 2 cups

3. Butter-  1/2 cup

4 eggs -three

5 vanilla extract- 1 tea spoon

6. cinnamon powder - 1 teaspoon
7 raisins- 1/2 cup.
8.sugar- 3/4 cup
9. salt- a pinch






Method:
1. remove the crust of the bread slices and keep aside.
2. heat milk in a pan over low flame. need not boil.
3. add butter to it and stir slowly until the butter melts.
4. take it off the stove top and put aside to cool.

5. heat the oven at 300 dg and prepare a baking dish by brushing some butter or oil at the bottom.
6. mix well the eggs, sugar ,salt and vanilla using an electric mixer or beating thoroughly.
7. when the milk is luke warm add the beaten egg in to it and stir well.
8. cut the bread slices in to medium squares and arrange them at the bottom of the baking dish.

9. sprinkle 1/2teaspoon of cinnamon powder over the bread pieces.
10. now evenly distribute the raisins over the bread pieces.

11. pour down the milk- mixture neatly over the bread.
12. make sure all the bread pieces are fully immersed in the  milk sauce.

13. sprinkle the remaining cinnamon powder.
14. bake for 40- 50 minutes or until the fork inserted in the middle comes out neatly.

Now the bread pudding is ready. Serve it hot...very apt for a chilly winter night.
A very HAPPY NEWYEAR to all!!!