Chocolate Bread Pudding

My sweet tooth will A.L.W.A.Y.S. be a part of me. I have completely resigned come to peace with myself about that. I love sweets. Give me a choice of a swirl of frosting or a cube of cheese. No brainer. givemethefrostingandnoonewillgethurt. It takes an enormous amount of willpower to not eat sugar all the time. Yes, I know that sugar itself it addictive. And no, I'm not going to completely eliminate it from my diet. = ) I want to be able to enjoy a few jelly beans at Easter time. Or maybe a few jelly beans other times of the year as well.

But, I do watch it. Otherwise I would weigh considerably more than I do now, and would feel quite a bit more 'bleh'. I enjoy an occasional indulgence ... and work hard at eating healthy the rest of the time.

But, oh. We did enjoy some amazing chocolate bread pudding at a friends' house for dinner many weeks ago. The kind of warm/hot dish of chocolately goodness that you can't just pass up. I had to have some of that dessert.

And when Eli's dad was coming over for dessert last week, I was wracking my brain on what I could make him. I mean, he lives in a house where top-notch pies are routinely made. My mother-in-law is a great baker. I didn't want to even attempt a regular "Brooks" dessert: I can't imagine my pies would hold up to hers. So, I needed something different.

Something like Chocolate Bread Pudding.

I sent a text to my friend requesting where she got the recipe, and she sent me back this LINK.

It is a fairly simple recipe. Chop up bread. Make a ganache of sorts, with an egg in there to give the pudding its "pudding" texture. Sprinkle with sugar and bake away. We made our simple homemade vanilla ice cream to top it off with. My pictures aren't great because it was dark outside, which means no bueno on good lighting. But just trust me: it's a good dessert. Eli, who is typically not a fan of bread pudding/bread stuffing because of the idea of soggy bread, might have had two servings. Just sayin', = )