Happy Birthday August Daring Bakers

Better late than never, I guess. It's August third and there are a bunch of birthdays in August for Daring Bakers, so I made all of them one dessert...a Plum Bread Pudding. This is similar to Peabody's, but with fresh off our tree plums. Hers was so good that an encore seemed appropriate.

We have two deer who have decided to live under the plum tree, so I didn't get too many this year, but there were enough to add a sweet fruitness and tang to the mellow custard of the bread pudding.

Happy Birthday to:

Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry, Freya from Writing At The Kitchen Table, Tara from Should You Eat That?, Ahn from Food Lovers Journey, Janet from Janet Is Hungry, and Christina from Wishing On Clovers.

Gale’s Bread Pudding with Cherries

A recipe from 1971, from a Fredricksburg, Maryland friend

4 cups dry bread cubes
3 cups milk, scalded
1 tablespoon butter
4 slightly beaten eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup peeled, sliced sweet red plums. Cut into chunks if plums are large.

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Melt the butter in the milk. Add a little of the milk to the beaten eggs, then add eggs to rest of milk. Stir in the sugar, lemon zest, salt, and vanilla.
3) Put the bread cubes in a large bowl. Pour the egg/milk mixture over, stir gently, and let sit 15 minutes.
4) Butter a large baking pan. A deep one will give a softer center, a shallower one will give more crispy crust. Gently stir plum slices or chunks into bread mixture and pour into baking pan.
5) Bake in a pan of hot water until firm, about 1 hour. Serve warm.