Bread Pudding Tweaks~A Frugal Way to Use Up Those Leftover Bread Bits

I have made this bread pudding recipe in the past, and although we like it enough to make it again and again, I wasn't crazy about the vanilla sauce that is to be served with it. So, I poured the sauce over the pudding after it was done baking and left it in the oven after turning off the oven and just let it sit in the still hot oven for about a half hour. Long enough to let the sauce soak in and evaporate a bit. We liked it SO much better that way. And no side dish of congealed butter sauce to deal with.
I had enough bread bits left over and socked away in the freezer to double the recipe, and then some. (I had two extra cups worth so I went ahead and threw that in too. Didn't hurt it at all.) There was even a gluten free blueberry muffin in my stash that I added to the recipe.

The gluten free bread was a cinnamon raisin bread with a decent amount of raisins in it so I didn't add any extra raisins (that the recipe calls for). I also greased my baking dish with organic virgin coconut oil.

(butter, milk & sugar getting heated up to pour over the bread crumbs. I never use margarine.)

(cinnamon for the egg mixture to pour over the bread & milk concoction)

(cinnamon, vanilla & egg mixture)

Ready to go into the oven!

Fresh from the oven. Warm, moist & a bit of crunch.

Can you tell I just had to try it?

All the tweaks & changes worked just fine. The gluten free bread worked, we couldn't tell the difference. (Even though there was some regular homemade french bread that went in too. And that blueberry muffin!)

As of this writing, (the morning after) half of that big ol' pan of bread pudding is gone!

Have a great day!