Chocolate Bread Pudding

After my excitement about the new Seafood City, I kind of forgot about the pan de leche I bought on a whim. Bert ate about 2 or 3 pieces while I had one. There was a good 3/4 of the loaf left and I didn't want it to go completely bad so I tweaked this recipe I got from the King's Hawaiian recipe website .

My variations are in yellow below.


Chocolate Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups half and half
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (9 oz.) (I used a mixture of Ghirardhelli dark chocolate chips and Toll House milk chocolate chips since that's what I had leftover from holiday baking)
4 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
6 cups lightly packed 1/2 inch cubes King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread (about half of 16 oz. loaf) (I used the pan de leche which isn't really as sweet as King's Hawaiian but it worked. Also, I didn't "cube" it. Fk that. I hand tore it into the glass baking dish. That's how I roll.)



Directions:
1. Heat half and half in saucepan over medium heat until small bubbles form around edge
2. Remove from eat, stir in chocolate, mix until melted. Cool slightly.
3. Whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt
4. Fold 1 cup cooled chocolate into egg mixture.
5. Pour chocolate mixture over bread cubes and mix until bread is well coated.
6. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes
7. Preheat oven to 325 F.
8. Lightly spray or grease an 8 z 8 x 12 inch pan. Bake 40-45 minutes.

I baked it for about 42 minutes. The top was nicely browned. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the "finished" product but it looked nice and chocolatey. I gave about 1/3 to my neighbor across the street and the rest is for us! D, if you're reading this, I'll make this for you since I know you're a bread pudding fanatic!

[Update - I made it again using King's Hawaiian this time. Still tasted the same!]

I'd like to add some coconut or maybe even Nutella...

Man, that's a huge loaf. I've only had King's Hawaiian as little buns not as a huge round loaf (heh heh, she said LOAF). I used only half as specificed by the recipe

I like the top crust of the bread the most. I think I'll save the other half for Bert so he can have something to eat with his coffee.

[Update on 2/27/:  Ooh, as I post this, the Oscars are on and Trent Reznor just won Best Original Score for "The Social Network". They showed him hugging his wife (a Filipina American), Mariqueen Maandig.  Hey, he just thanked her on air! She used to be in a band and is now in a musical collab with her husband. She also posed in Playboy too. I wonder if she's from San Diego because I know someone with that same last name which isn't very common (they aren't sisters). ]