Chocolate bread pudding

Ingredients (serves 8):
1 cup cream
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 loaf FairPrice Bread
170g roughly-chopped bittersweet chocolate
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 150 deg C.
2. Cut the bread into quarters.
3. Place the cream, milk, vanilla extract and cinnamon in a medium saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil. Remove from the heat.
4. Pour the chocolate into the milk mixture and whisk till smooth.
5. In a deep bowl, combine the egg yolks and sugar, and whisk.
6. Pour the chocolate mixture very slowly into the egg-yolk mixture, whisking constantly, until fully combined.
7. In a large oven-proof dish, arrange some of the quartered bread in a single layer at the bottom. Spoon over a generous amount of the chocolate custard to cover. Press down with the spoon to ensure the bread absorbs the custard well.
8. Repeat with more layers of bread and chocolate custard until you reach the top of the dish, pressing down on each layer to ensure proper absorption.
9. Pour the remaining custard over the top to make sure that it is completely covered and that all the cracks are filled.
10. Wipe the edges of the dish with a damp towel and allow it to sit for 30 minutes.
11. Place the dish in a larger pan, then fill the outer pan with hot water halfway up the sides of the baking dish. Bake until set, about 35 minutes.

Tips:
Recipe uses NTUC FairPrice’s Hi-Cal Milk Bread ($1.55), Hi-Fibre White Bread ($1.80) and Multi Grain Bread ($2.50) available at all FairPrice supermarkets.

Recipe source: Today newspaper (29 Jan 2009)