The Great Muffin Experiment, No. 3 (Jump to the Recipe)

I'm only a couple of bakes into this project, and already I am faced with the question: what the hell am I going to do with all these muffins?

Ideally, everything goes in the freezer, and I thaw a couple of muffins at a time. A batch of muffins is typically twelve, so if I bake every other week or so, I shouldn't have a problem eating my way through my supply.

But then, sometimes, the recipe kind of sucks; sometimes, the batch doesn't freeze well; sometimes, the freezer is full. And sometimes, you want to — maybe you even need to — transform the muffins into something else.

Might I suggest bread muffin pudding?

Muffin Pudding

This is based on Mark Bittman's Simple Bread Pudding recipe in The New York Times.

Prep time: 10 minutes  ·  Cooking time: 45 minutes  ·  Servings: 6 to 8  ·  Calories: 382

Ingredients:

• 2 cups milk
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 5 to 6 cups of muffins, broken into 2" pieces
• 2 eggs, beaten
• fresh fruit (optional)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 4 to 6 cup baking dish and fill with the muffin pieces. Add fresh fruit, if desired.
2. In a small saucepan over low heat, warm the milk, butter, vanilla, sugar, and salt. Cook until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved.
3. Cool the mixture. Then add the beaten eggs. Pour this over the muffins.
4. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes until the custard is set but still a little bit wobbly.
5. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Some Baking Notes

I used the leftovers from the batch of Basic Muffins I made for dessert, along with a couple of fresh plums from my local fruit CSA. No surprise, many of the complaints one might have about that recipe - not that sweet, not that rich, not that flavorful - were addressed by the addition of more egg, more butter, more sugar, and more milk. Of course, if one's complaints were those muffins just weren't healthy enough...