Salted Caramel Gluten-Free Bread Pudding

I love it when unexpected recipes pull together perfectly. This happened to be one of those, but I have my fair share of failures too (don’t worry; you won’t see many of those). My mother makes a wonderful bread pudding – which she learned to make from her mother. My grandma is where I got my love for baking. I will forever keep her cookbooks with handwritten notes in quick reach. I haven’t been able to use any of the recipes from her because they are simply not in my diet. Nothing that I make calls for lard, white refined sugar, bacon grease, Crisco or Velveeta. However- I do try to glance through to get some ideas and to remake one of our favorites. Bread pudding was a must try as my husband loves it. I’ve found that my cooking ideas work best when I just cook rather than analyze or get precise measurements, etc. I’m sure glad I decided to just go with this one…

½ loaf of stale gluten free bread, cubed (about 6 – ½” slices)

1 cup eggs (whole, white, any combo. I used 1 whole egg and enough egg white to make a cup)
1 cup milk (I used almond/coconut blend, but you could use regular or evaporated)
1 Tbsp cinnamon
½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
½ cup sugar (I used Stevia powder blend or your could use ¼ cup honey)
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp olive oil
¼ cup caramel sauce
1 tsp sea salt

• Preheat oven to 350°F and grease or spray with cooking spray a 9x9 baking dish.
• If your bread slices are not stale or you need to crisp them up, put them on a cookie sheet and bake for a few minutes. You want your bread to be dry and crumbly but not too hard like a crouton.
• Once your bread is the desired crispness, break into about ½“cubes and place in a large mixing bowl.
• Add the eggs, milk, cinnamon, spice, oil, sugar and vanilla in with the bread crumbs. Mix together with your hands (so you can tell when you have the right texture).
• Massage ingredients together until you get a very wet dough. It should resemble a chunky cake mix after mixing. You may need to add in a little more milk to get the dough wet enough – if so, add a tablespoon at a time.
• Pour into the baking dish and bake for 25minutes or until almost completely cooked.
• Remove from oven and pour over the caramel sauce and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until cooked completely through (when a knife comes out clean).