I am a huge fan of dessert and I love bread pudding, but too often I make it in enormous batches and then eat a whole 9 x 13 pan by myself, which is never a good thing. So, I came up with a little trick to make bread pudding for one by using leftover muffins instead of regular bread pieces.
I can't remember if I posted a recipe for banana muffins, but if I didn't, you can use whichever muffin recipe suits you (I have a vision of pumpkin muffins in the recipe in the future), although I don't think I would do blueberry. That might be weird. Or, it might be delicious, who am I to judge? On the topic of muffins-- even if you are like me and all alone in your apartment/ house/ mansion/ Tuscan villa, feel free to make a full batch of 6 or 12 or 24, because muffins freeze splendidly and defrost within minutes in either a toaster oven or microwave (or regular oven, of course). Then, when you have a craving for a muffin or the bread pudding dessert I am going to explain below, you just have to defrost one and enjoy.
Once you have the muffins made, prepping for the bread pudding is exceptionally easy.
First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees as per usual for baked goods (aren't you glad I told you to do this at the start of the instructions instead of waiting to the end like normal?). Then, take 1 egg, 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and whisk together. If it seems to eggy, add more milk. If you like lots of cinnamon, you can add more as well.
Then, take the muffin, and break it into lots of pieces. If you are like me and take out muffins to defrost them but forget about them let them get stale, you can use a stale muffins for this recipe as well. Put this broken up muffin into the bowl with the egg mixture. Let the egg get absorbed into the muffin pieces and once thoroughly coated, scoop the dredged muffin bits and put them in a greased ramekin, coffee mug, teacup, or any small single serving oven proof container.* If there is any leftover egg mixture you can pour it on top, but don't over do it. You will know what I mean.
Last, bake this for about 15 minutes, until it is cooked through (knife inserted will not be coated with eggy-ness), puffy, and golden brown. Top with whipped cream or ice cream or nothing and enjoy.
*One muffin might be too much for one ramekin (depending on the size of it) so if you are overflowing, you might need to make 2 mini bread puddings. But think about it this way--- it is still a single serving because it is only 1 muffin. Am I right or am I right? I'm right. Don't feel guilty eating a muffin's worth of bread pudding, that'd be silly and then we couldn't be friends.
Post Script: you can substitute the muffin with a slice or two of your favorite kind or bread.
Final Note: Having trouble loading photos (again) so you will have to wait to see the end result! My apologies!
