Gluten free bread pudding

Bread pudding is extremely comforting, and has warm fuzzy childhood memories for me. I haven't had it in years, especially when starting to eat gluten free. I wonder now why I waited so long to make it - it turned out to be very easy. It was actually the first bread pudding I had very made, and from what I remember, it works just as well gluten free as gluteny.

Lovely thick bread pudding

As I did with my recent first time frittata, I just googled bread pudding to make the basic ingredients, ratios and cooking time. There are so many recipes out there, I liked the look of Nigella's, Nigel Slater's & BCC Good Food recipes. I didn't have all the suggested ingredients, so I improvised, this is a whatever is in the cupboard type of dessert - kind f anything goes and it will work.

Recipes generally say use stale bread, but I used a defrosted loaf, that had been in the freezer a bit too long and it worked fine.

The Ingredients
300g Gluten Free Bread (I used Genius)
300g dried fruit (I used sultanas)
Instead of 50g of mixed peel, I used 2 Bear Nibbles YoYo Strawberry rolls broken up into small pieces
360ml of lactofree or dairy free milk
1 large egg
84g xylitol
60g melted organic butter or non-dairy spread
1.5 tbsp on mixed spice
2 tbsp of xylitol to spinkle on top of the cake mix

The Method
Preheat the oven to 180C (fan assisted oven).

Tear the bread up, add the mixed spice, all fruit (and peel if using).

Pour over the milk and mix until all the bread has absorbed the milk.

Beat the egg add this and the xylitol mix.

Leave it to sit for 15 minutes.

Add the melted butter and mix until everything is well combined.

Line a 20cm square tin, and pour in the mix.

Once you have leveled the mix, sprinkle 2 tablespoons of xylitol over the top, to add a lovely crunchiness to the top. 

Bake for 1 hour.

Once slightly cooled, cut into squares and enjoy with a cup of tea. This is nice cold but is best warm.

The top goes crunchy with the extra xylitol sprinkled on top