Like pretty much every person in America during this pandemic, I too attempted to make bread at one point during quarantine. However, since the stores were constantly out of yeast, I decided to attempt a sourdough starter, and make some sourdough bread, and I learned a couple things in the process. First of all, it takes like five days for your starter before it’s ready to use? Second of all, you need to waste a LOT of flour on this starter during the five days you let it grow or ferment or whatever. Finally, please add salt to your bread, or some kind of flavoring. Because while my bread tasted very bread-like(although a bit on the dense side), it tasted bland as hell. Anyways, I decided to freeze my semi-successful attempt at making bread to eat at a later date. But my mother was finally getting irritated with our increasingly full fridge, so I figured it was time for me use up my bread. I immediately decided this was a sign for me to make bread pudding, as it’s super easy, and the perfect opportunity to use up my bland bread, and some almond butter packets we had lying around.

Pro tip that I didn’t know before making this bread pudding: massage these packets before opening so you can actually get the almond butter out of the package.

I also discovered I had some oat milk on hand. So in my recipe, you’ll see some of the milk in the custard is replaced with oat milk, and also used in the caramel. This is because I wanted to make sure both the custard and caramel was extra creamy, and to me oat milk is richer than regular milk. Also, I was out of heavy cream. But it all turned out okay! So now it’s a part of my recipe.

peep the Great British Bake Off in the corner.

I’m especially proud of the oat milk browned butter caramel in this recipe. I was going to come up with a custard, but since I still had another packet of almond butter to use, and I’m obsessed with browned butter everything, I realized caramel was definitely the move.

Browned butter seems so fancy, but as it turns out, it’s super easy to make. Basically, you just cook butter until it goes past the fully melted and bubbling stage and has tiny brown flecks in it, and causes your kitchen to smell like buttery, delicious, caramel.

When I was first cooking the sugar for the caramel, I too was dubious. How is granulated sugar supposed to melt into a pale brown syrup? But after much stirring, slowly, almost magically, you’ll see a liquid form after the sugar clumps up, and then the sugar will melt into the liquid. Finally you’ll have the golden brown liquid. Trust me. Like most things, it just takes time and patience.

Afterwards, it’s time for the oat milk. But be careful, as it will bubble vigorously. And once it settles down, there will be large clumps of sugar. But do not worry. Just keep stirring vigorously, and the sugar will melt into the sauce.

And finally, once you strain your caramel, it’s time to swirl in your almond butter, for the final touch.

almond butter bread pudding with browned butter caramel

(caramel sauce adapted from https://www.thechunkychef.com/browned-butter-salted-caramel-sauce/ , and

bread pudding from https://food52.com/blog/9881-how-to-make-bread-pudding-without-a-recipe )

serves: 6

cooking time: 50 minutes

ingredients

for the bread pudding:

1/4 cup oat milk
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup chocolate chips
5 eggs
6 tbs. almond butter
1 tbs. vanilla extract
1 loaf of bread(I used my homemade sourdough), cubed
1 tbs. pumpkin pie spice
pinch of salt

for the browned butter caramel

1/2 cup unsalted butter
heaping 3/4 cup sugar
1 cup oat milk
6 tbs. almond butter
pinch of salt

steps

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Whisk eggs, oat milk, whole milk, vanilla, sugar, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and maple syrup together until fully combined.
Whisk in the almond butter until fully incorporated, then pour over the bread cubes and toss until bread is fully covered.
Toss in chocolate chips until evenly distributed, and let soak for 30 minutes.
Grease a 9 X 13 in. casserole dish, and pour in bread pudding, and bake for 30-40 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the caramel: Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat, until butter is fully melted and is golden brown in color and has tiny light-brown specks in it.
Set the browned butter aside, and clean the saucepan.
Heat the sugar over medium heat in the saucepan, and constantly stir until liquid forms and the sugar fully dissolves into a caramel-colored liquid.
Turn the heat to low, and pour back in the butter, and stir until fully combined.
Take the saucepan off of the heat, and slowly and carefully, pour in the oat milk, which will foam up and bubble.
Stir very vigorously so that the sugar doesn’t clump up too much, and take the sauce off the sauce when the sauce is glossy and the sugar is fully incorporated.
Strain the sauce, and then stir in the almond butter.
Serve the pudding with the caramel poured on top.