Chai-Spiced Bread Pudding

Week 300 of writing this blog, which means 300 Sundays of cooking something and telling you about it, and if you are reading this and you have been here since 2016 I owe you a plate. I mean it. Come to Hartford. I will feed you. Eduardo will make you sit at the table. You will eat. You will not leave hungry.

This week was a quiet week, which is good for the blog in its way — I cannot write milestones every Sunday because life is not milestones, life is the arroz con gandules you make on Tuesday and the towels you fold on Wednesday and the walk you take with Eduardo at 7 AM on Thursday before the cold reminds you it is still Hartford.

Monday I made carne guisada again — the good kind, with the gravy thickened with the flour I dusted the beef in before searing, a technique my mother scoffs at ("Abuela Consuelo did not flour her beef, Carmen") and that I do anyway because my gravy comes out right and my mother's, on this specific point, was wrong. I know, I know. Heresy. I am allowed heresy at fifty-six.

Tuesday was the hospital. We served 1,487 meals. I know because I count them on Tuesdays. The chicken was overcooked and I sent it back to the kitchen and made them re-run a batch with proper timer attention and the kitchen manager — my second, Jorge, twenty-nine, ambitious, good — looked at me with the resigned face of a man who is being supervised by his own future. I do not apologize. The meals go out correctly. I owe the patients that.

Wednesday Mami came to dinner and ate almost nothing. She said she was not hungry. She said the beef smelled strange. It did not smell strange. But her nose is changing — she is losing sense of smell, which for a woman who has cooked for seventy years is a grief I cannot fully comprehend. She ate a roll. She drank her café con leche. She went home early and Eduardo drove her and I stayed and cleaned up by myself.

Thursday I called David. He is opening a new menu at the Brooklyn restaurant — seasonal stuff, spring things, ramps and asparagus reimagined through a Puerto Rican filter — and he wanted to run an idea past me. Ramp sofrito. Wild-garlic-adjacent, pungent, green. I thought about it. I said, "David, that is not sofrito, that is a vinaigrette in a costume. Make it. Call it something else. Do not call it sofrito." He laughed. He called it ramp picada. We both won.

Friday night Eduardo and I watched a movie on the couch. He fell asleep at 9:15. I finished the movie alone. I thought about the 300 Sundays and about Mami's nose and about Sofía's nursing school and about David's ramp picada and I thought: all of this counts. Even the Tuesday nobody will remember. Especially the Tuesday nobody will remember. Wepa.

The carne guisada carried Monday, and Wednesday’s dinner carried Mami — even if she only ate a roll — and what I wanted to make after all of that was something warm and forgiving, something that turns leftover bread into something worth sitting down for. This chai-spiced bread pudding is that kind of recipe: steady, unhurried, fragrant in a way that fills a kitchen the same way a good story fills a room. I made it Thursday after I got off the phone with David, just because I wanted the house to smell like something good while Eduardo read on the couch, and that is reason enough at week 300.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 loaf (about 14 oz) day-old French bread or brioche, cut into 1-inch cubes
3 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional)
Powdered sugar or whipped cream, for serving

Instructions

Prep the pan and bread. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish generously. Spread the cubed bread in an even layer in the dish. If the bread is very fresh, spread it on a baking sheet and toast it at 300°F for 10 minutes first to dry it slightly.
Make the custard. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until smooth and slightly pale, about 1 minute. Add the whole milk, heavy cream, melted butter, vanilla extract, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, black pepper, and salt. Whisk until fully combined.
Soak the bread. Pour the custard evenly over the bread cubes. Press the bread down gently with the back of a spoon so every piece absorbs the liquid. Scatter the raisins or dried cranberries over the top if using. Let the mixture rest for at least 15 minutes so the bread fully soaks through.
Bake. Place the baking dish in the preheated oven and bake uncovered for 45 to 55 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the center is set — it should jiggle slightly but not slosh. A knife inserted in the center should come out mostly clean.
Rest and serve. Let the pudding rest for 10 minutes before cutting. Dust with powdered sugar or serve with a dollop of whipped cream. It is good warm, and it is good the next morning with café con leche, which is when I think it is best.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chai-Spiced Bread Pudding — For the Tuesdays Nobody Will Remember