Challah Bread Pudding

Around the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur my mother-in-law or my husband picks us up a wonderful round or loaf of challah bread, rich and moist and eggy. I'm pretty sure we could devour it all in one sitting, but I usually end up stashing half of it in the freezer for a cool day when I feel like making bread pudding.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Take four cups of cubed challah, dry it out a bit. ( I place it in my oven with the pilot light, for an hour or so). Place in a large mixing bowl. Add a cup of cubed apples or pears, which have been sauted in a tablespoon of butter and two tablespoons sugar. To bread mixture add half a cup of raisins, if you like.

Beat four eggs; beat in 2/3 cups sugar, a teaspoon vanilla. Beat in three cups of milk.
Pour the liquid mixture over the bread cubes. Gently pour that into a baking dish.
Place the baking dish inside a water bath. Okay, what does that mean? You take your smaller baking dish, the size of a brownie dish, where your bread pudding is. You place that in a larger dish, 13 x 9 inches, for example. Now, you pour hot water into the larger pan, until the water comes more or less up half the side of the smaller dish. Why? To ensure that the eggs don't decide to go hardboiled right in the middle of your much-anticipated dessert.

Bake until set in the center, 45 minutes to an hour. Serve warm, room temperature, or cold.