Easy Frugal Dessert

For my first ever Frugal Friday entry I’m going to share with you one of my favorite recipes, Bread Pudding. It is the epitome of frugality. My Grandma taught me how to make this as a little girl and she told me that it originated during the depression and was called “poor man’s dessert” because it was a dessert you could make even if you didn’t have flour or other fancy ingredients. All you need is stale bread, eggs, milk and sugar and you’ve got one of the most moist and delicious desserts (more like a cake, don't let the name fool you) you’ll ever taste. Add the butter sauce and it is really decadent.

This is a great way to use up stale bread, hot dog or hamburger buns. I personally save the heels from all of my loaves of bread (my kids won’t eat them) and freeze them until have I an entire loaf of bread made from heels. When the bread sack is full I make Bread Pudding.

Grandma’s Bread Pudding with Butter Sauce

2/3 cup sugar

2 cups milk
2 t. vanilla

3 eggs, beaten

Fill a 9 X 9 square pan to heaping with stale bread torn into bite sized pieces. Mix all ingredients and dump over bread. Mix well. (It works best to use your hands to really squish the liquid into all of the bread.) Bake at 325 for one hour.

Butter Sauce

¼ cup butter

2 T. sugar
2 T. flour

½ t. vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Mix in flour and sugar. Add liquids, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil over low heat and stir until thickened. Let cool and refrigerate.

The Bread Pudding and the Sauce are delicious warm, but even two days later the Bread Pudding will be soft and moist. The sauce will congeal in the refrigerator so you will need to heat it each time you use it.

For more great Frugal Friday tips click on the graphic above.