Pumpkin & Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

This is my first official blog post and I am so excited to be telling you about this super yum dessert I made my husband for Christmas dinner. I must start off by saying that I am not a baker at all. I can cook and love to cook, but baking is a whole other story.


I had never even tasted bread pudding until my husband and I stated dating 5 years ago. One night we were at McCoy's and he ordered it for dessert and it was love at first bite for me! Bread pudding is one of his favorite things...he also loves most pumpkin desserts. Well I ran across a recipe for pumpkin bread pudding at smitten kitchen a few weeks ago and just knew I had to make it for him. I called my dad for some advice on making this as perfectly as possible and he educated me on how it is made and the history of it (he used to be a chef). He told me he makes it with stale cinnamon rolls and pretty much any bread that is at least a day old. The other day a friend and I made cookies and for some reason the chocolate chip cookies were super crispy and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with two dozen of them. So, after hearing about my dad and the stale cinnamon rolls, I decided I would just throw several of the crispy cookies in...which made for a super yummy bread pudding loved by all who tried it.

So here is the recipe:

•2 cups of whole milk
•1 can of pumpkin
•1/2 cup of sugar
•1/4 cup of brown sugar
•1/2 teaspoon of salt
•1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
•1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
•1/8 teaspoon for pumpkin pie spice
•2 tablespoons of bourbon (optional)
•5 cups of cubed day old bread (mine was not a day old and it was still really soft so I toasted it in the oven for 10 minutes at 350℉)
•10 crispy or stale chocolate chip cookies
•3/4 cups of unsalted butter

Preheat oven at 350℉

While preheating oven to 350°F with rack in middle, melt butter in bottom of a 8-inch square baking dish. Once it is melted, take it out of the oven and toss bread cubes with butter, coating thoroughly. In a separate bowl, whisk together all the remaining ingredients. Pour them over buttered bread cubes in baking dish, stirring to make sure all pieces are evenly coated. Bake until custard is set, 25 to 30 minutes.

Next time I make this, I will be doing it gluten free because I found out I am gluten intolerant last spring and I have pretty much avoided it until this past week...I fell off the wagon and my body hates me for it.