Cherry Chocolate Bread Pudding

This cherry and chocolate bread pudding came to be when I was planning Spouse’s favorite Dijon and Brown Sugar Glazed Ham for supper last night and wanted a good dessert for afters. Regular readers of this blog will know that Spouse is very, very fond of a good bread pudding. She’s also partial to dried cherries and of course, chocolate so I decided to put together this dessert to serve after that great ham. It was all very well received, although she seems a little suspicious in her contented state. She’s probably wondering what I’m saving up the brownie points for…I think I’ll keep her guessing for now.



Ingredients
For the Cherry Bread Pudding
5 cups bread cubes (Use any good quality bread. I’ve used day old croissants here but Brioche, French, Italian or Belgian bread is good too.)
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1½ cups whipping cream
1½ cups milk
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Pinch salt
1 cup dried cherries
For the Warm Chocolate Ganache Sauce
½ cup whipping cream
½ pound chocolate chips or good quality chopped chocolate

Instructions
Grease a 9x9 inch square baking dish or similar sized baking dish.
Toss the bread cubes with the cinnamon and nutmeg and place ½ of them in the bottom of the greased baking dish and sprinkle ½ cup of the dried cherries over them.
Add the second half of the bread cubes and sprinkle with the remaining dried cherries.
Whisk together the whipping cream, milk, eggs, egg yolks, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract and salt.
Pour the mixture evenly over the bread cubes, pressing down slightly to make sure all the cubes are soaked. Let the pudding sit for 20-30 minutes for all of the cream mixture to be absorbed by the bread.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes until the custard is set and no longer liquid in the center. Let the bread pudding stand for about 20 minutes before serving with the warm chocolate ganche sauce.
For the Chocolate Ganache Sauce
Heat the cream to scalding but not boiling.
Pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips.
Let stand for 5 minutes before stirring until smooth.





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