Recipe: Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Pudding (crock pot)

CINNAMON-RAISIN BREAD PUDDING

"Bread puddings for breakfast? You bet! This one cooks up into a fluffy, sweet, and moist cake."

FOR SIZE: 2 TO 3 1/2 QUART:
4 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for greasing the slow cooker
12 (1/2-inch-thick) slices cinnamon-raisin bread*
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
4 cups milk
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch salt

FOR SIZE: 4 TO 5 1/2 QUART:
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for greasing the slow cooker
16 (1/2-inch-thick) slices cinnamon-raisin bread*
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
5 1/3 cups milk
4 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

FOR SIZE: 6 TO 8 QUART:
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for greasing the slow cooker
24 (1/2-inch-thick) slices cinnamon-raisin bread*
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
8 cups milk
6 large eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

Butter the inside of a slow cooker. Butter one side of each of the slices of the bread.

Layer the bread slices buttered side up in the slow cooker along with the pecans and brown sugar, making a layer of bread, then sprinkling it with pecans and brown sugar, before making another layer - and even more.** The top layer should be only bread, buttered side up.

Whisk the milk, eggs, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl until smooth and creamy;*** pour over the layers in the cooker, pressing the bread down with the back of a wooden spoon to make sure the egg and milk mixture has soaked through the layers.

Cover crock pot and cook on low for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the casserole is puffed up and a flatware knife inserted into the center of the pudding comes out clean.

*The best bread for this dish will in fact be slightly stale, certainly day- old - maybe even two-day-old. It'll add extra firmness to balance all that butter.

**Because of varying sizes and shapes among slow cookers, there's no way to predict the number of layers you'll make in Step 2. The count is actually less important than an even top layer.

***Whisk those eggs in the milk for a good while, until the whole thing is uniform, even foamy, with no bits of egg white floating in the mix.

Recipe copyright 2014, Used by permission to Recipelink.com from Clarkson Potter
Adapted from source: The Great American Slow Cooker Book by Bruce Weinsten and Mark Scarbrough