breaking bread

Sometimes spending a meal together as a family can be difficult, especially when schedules of both the children and adults collide.

It’s wonderful that with Christmas around the corner, most of the kids’ extracurricular activities have begun to wind down and pause (and I mean just pause, and ever so slightly), allowing us just a few more opportunities to “break bread” together as a family. 

I love all the foods that come with Christmas.  Just like Thanksgiving, I can never tire of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and all the Christmas treats!  The ginger bread cookies!  The candy canes!  The chocolate covered nuts or anything!  However, the only thing that our family doesn’t particularly enjoy is Christmas pudding.

I think the concept is interesting.  My kids love fruit, however, they’d probably prefer something that tasted more like “chunky monkey” sandwiches (banana and Nutella sandwiches), a sandwich inspired by the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor of the same name.  So, when I discovered this interesting Nutella Croissant Pudding found here, I thought, how about making a different kind of pudding...not necessarily a Christmas pudding per se, but a bread pudding that all of us can enjoy.

Let’s just say, the kids loved it!  Although it's not your usual Christmas pudding, here’s a different kind of bread pudding that might just be a new tradition (Christmas or any other time of the year!) 

Nutella Croissant Pudding/Chunky Monkey pudding

(adapted from Inspired Taste’s recipe)

Ingredients:

• 3 croissants (preferably 1-2 days old)
• 3/4 cup Nutella
• 1 banana, sliced
• 2 eggs
•  ½ cup heavy cream, ½ cup 2% milk
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
•  1/4  teaspoon salt
•  ½ cup sugar 
• 2 tbsp. cashews or any other kind of nut
• Powdered sugar (for finishing touches)

Preparation

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

• Slice each croissant in half lengthwise then slather one side with Nutella. 
• Add sliced bananas. 
• Make sandwiches and cut into 2-inch pieces.

• Add sandwich pieces and sprinkle with nuts to a small baking dish or loaf pan.
• In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, cream, almond extract, salt and sugar together to make a custard.
• Pour the custard over the sandwich pieces then gently push down the bread to absorb the custard.
• 
Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes then remove the foil and continue to bake uncovered for about 10 minutes until the bread pudding is golden brown and the liquid has been completely absorbed. 
• Let cool and then sprinkle on powdered sugar to finish.

Serve warm...with ice cream (Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, perhaps?)




{Attending these beautiful  parties...Centsational Girl}