Slow-cooker Sweets: How to Make Delicious Bread Pudding in Your Crock Pot

whiskey caramel bread pudding
whiskey caramel bread pudding

I'm the kind of girl who really digs her crock pot. I'm stretched just a little too thin in life to slow down enough to really enjoy cooking most dishes. But desserts I can usually get on board with. There's something about the singular focus that goes in to most desserts that I find kind of zen. And this recipe for White Chocolate Whiskey Bread Pudding that I stole from my Dad is just about the best thing you can put in your crock pot and forget about for a few hours. You ready to write this down so that your husband can make it for you on Mother's Day? Okay good.

BREAD PUDDING
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/4 cups white chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups milk
2 eggs, beaten
3 egg yolks, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 loaf (1-pound) stale French bread

CARAMEL WHISKEY SAUCE
1/3 cup whiskey
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon corn syrup
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
6 tablespoons ( 3/4 stick) butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract


Step 1: Personally, I'm both lazy and a cheater, so where the recipe calls for 1 loaf (about a lb) of french bread cubed, I buy the pre-sliced that my local bakery sells, and then I take crock-pottery to a new level of kitchen slackerdom by cutting the pre-cut bread in half with [my go-to tool] kitchen shears to get it to suitable "bread pudding" proportions.

Step 2: White Chocolate Baby. First thing's first. Take the heavy cream and bring it to a simmer. Then you're going to pour it over the white chocolate chips, in a heat-safe bowl of course, and mix until they're all melted and delicious. Now stir the sugar, milk, eggs, egg yolks and vanilla to into that white chocolate melty goodness to create your "custard base."

Step 3: Next you're gonna add all that dried out bread to your base and mix and mix until it's well soaked, and then you're going to let it soak for like 45 minutes, while you check up on it every so often mixing occasionally.

Related: 10 tasty mug cakes you can make in under 10 minutes

Step 4: Finally, it's into the crock pot with the whole shebang. I've done this for 1.5 hours on High, or 3 hours on Low. I've noticed no discernible difference between the two.

Step 5: Alright, now that your bread pudding is safely in the crock pot, it's time for us to move on to the Whiskey Caramel Sauce. It involves flambe. Here's how I handle it. I take a small saucepan and pour the whiskey in, then I take a long lighter, and POOF! Flambe.

Step 6: In a separate pot, combine milk, butter and salt, melting the butter into the milk, while in STILL ANOTHER POT I mix the corn syrup, sugar and water. Okay, this is the hardest part. Stir the sugar, corn syrup, and water until it's like thick sand. Then, turn on the stove. DO NOT MIX THE QUICKSAND ANY MORE OR YOU WILL MESS IT UP. Just let it boil, about 7-10 minutes until it turns a dark carmel color. You're going to think you're doing it wrong until all of a sudden you realize you're doing it right, it smells like carmel and the color is perfect. But watch it, because it's apparently very easy to burn at this stage. Then, you're going to pour your milk/butter mixture into your sugar mixture. It's going to look crazy, but that's okay. Once it stops boiling, add your whiskey (which should be done burning off by now) and you're donezo. Put it in a heat safe container until you're ready to serve.

And that's it. Eat and enjoy.

- By Morgan Shanahan
Follow Morgan at Babble

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