Tuesdays With Dorie: Apple-Apple Bread Pudding

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, Apple-Apple Bread Pudding, chosen by Elizabeth of Cake or Death?, couldn't have come at a better time for me.

You see, I've been sick since last week. Not deathly ill, thankfully, but the kind of ill that makes life pretty unpleasant nonetheless. It started out with a sore throat, shortness of breath, and an overwhelming urge to lie down on any flat surface - a desk, the floor, a book trolley at work. Then it mutated into the kind of cough that has prevented me from sleeping more than 20 minutes in a row for the past five nights. Five nights!

After five sleepless nights - four when I made this recipe yesterday - my brain is positively fried. Simple logic? Can't do it. Common sense? It's temporarily flown the coop. So this week, I needed a Tuesdays With Dorie recipe that was easy, and also soothing. Very soothing.

Enter apple-apple bread pudding. There were quite a few steps, sure, but they were all very methodical and pretty straightforward. I can slice apples. I can melt butter with sugar. And I can make a custard, especially when it doesn't involve tireless stirring over the stove top. And I can do all of these things - well, not in my sleep, but with a severe lack of sleep.

This recipe was a huge success, and makes a wonderful dessert or breakfast (hey, there are eggs and fruit in it, and I used whole wheat bread). Creamy custard, caramelized apples, texture from the bread, and an inviting complexity from the apple butter. Dorie, you've done it again.

Thank you Elizabeth! For the recipe, visit her blog.