Make Do and Eat: Lemon Bread Pudding

Our family has a lot of bread crusts. Like a whole freezer full. And stale bagels, that one hamburger or hot dog bun that doesn't get eaten, you know what I mean.  Since we are in the process of maybe moving soon, I figured it was time to start clearing out that overstuffed freezer.  You know planning ahead just in case.  To my knowledge there is only two things worthy of leftover stale bread (well frozen leftover stale bread; I forgot about French toast).  Homemade croutons (delish!) and bread pudding!  I chose the second.  I was inspired by this pin:

via Pinterest via http://bijouxs.com/2012/04/15/meyer-lemon-bread-pudding/

So I came up with my own with a little help from Alton Brown.  You've probably figured out that he is my all-time favorite cooking guru by now.  Here's what you'll need:

• Lemon Curd made a day or two in advance; recipe used below. Buy some if you really have to.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/lemon-curd-recipe/index.html

• 18 oz. of stale bread (any kind but if you want to get fancy get a french boule, challah, baguette, french loaf, if you want to get really fancy cut off the crusts)
• 2 lg. whole eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 3 cups half & half (I made my own with leftover heavy cream and 2% milk in equal parts, whole milk and cream would have been closer to real half & half)
• 1 cup whole milk (again made my own, but kind of winged it so that it looked like whole milk)
• 2 fl. oz. lemon juice (fresh squeezed)
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• butter to grease the pan
• Powdered Sugar to garnish if you must

Cut the bread into 1 inch cubes.  Then basically you throw all the ingredients except the lemon curd in a blender for a short time.  I blended too long and made some mutant form of whipped cream, but I knew a night in the fridge, and the heat of the oven would settle things down.  Grease a large casserole dish with some butter, toss in your bread cubes, spread (or in my case dribble!) the lemon curd over the bread. Pour you blender mixture over the bread and curd, and let sit between 2-8 hours to soak up the blender custard you just made.  Cook in a 325 degree oven until the temperature is 170 degrees about 45-55 min.  Rest 15-30 min.  Cut into squares and try not to eat so much crispy, eggy, moist, lemony, caramelized goodness that you almost throw up (happened!)

Enjoy!