Recipe: Challah Bread Pudding

Last Friday I was invited to a Shabbat dinner, so I made sure to bring challah so I wouldn't arrive empty handed. But I should have known that my good host would already have challah. So then I had a whole loaf of bread to myself. What was I going to do with it? Make bread pudding, obviously!

I found this recipe on the blog Live Well Bake Often. Sounded pretty easy, so I thought I'd try it.

Ingredients

• 1 loaf day-old challah bread cubed into 1-inch pieces
• 5 large eggs lightly beaten
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 cups whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

Bread cubes

1. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Place the cubed challah bread into the prepared baking dish and spread it around into an even layer. Set aside.

The spices didn't completely blend in, but I think that's okay.

2. In a very large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon until fully combined. Pour the mixture evenly over the bread in the prepared baking pan, making sure all of the bread is coated. Allow to sit and soak up the mixture for about 15 minutes.

Everything is mixed together and ready for the oven!

3. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350°F. Once the 15 minutes is over, place the bread pudding in the oven and bake at 350°F for 45-50 minutes or until the top is set.

4. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.

First of all, I did not read the entire blog post, just the ingredients list and the basic instructions. So I missed the part about slightly toasting fresher challah so that it will be a little dried out, which is ideal for bread pudding. I bought my challah on Friday afternoon and made the bread pudding on Sunday; while it was a few days old, it was not quite stale. But that didn't seem the matter: this bread pudding was delicious! I also didn't have any nutmeg, so I used allspice instead. It gave the bread pudding a bit of a chai flavor, which I actually really like. I would definitely make this recipe again!

Iceland: Day 4

I was leaving Iceland but had a few hours in the morning to entertain myself. After Hannah and I had breakfast at a nearby bakery (we enjoyed more hot chocolate and pastries), she had to head out for the latter half of her trip.

Image found here.

Once she was gone, I just walked around before visiting the Saga Museum. I will say, I thought it was overpriced for what it was, and the museum was a bit disappointing for have such a front-and-center location as people walked toward the downtown area. I paid more than $20 to simply listen to a recording as I walked in the dark and looked at wax figurines. So I wouldn’t recommend it.

After that visit, I hit up a few more stores before starting the long walk to BSI. Since it was another sunny, warm day, the walk was more pleasant but also a bit hotter than the walk to the hostel when we first arrived. I almost missed my bus, not because of timing, but because I was confused about which airport I wanted. But the bus driver helped me out and I was on my way.

Alcohol, perfume, candy, oh my! Image found here.

I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to go shopping at the duty free store, where everyone said things would be cheaper. I’m not sure they really were, but I did get candy for my office and some souvenirs for family members. Then I grabbed lunch (a veggie sandwich and mango chia smoothie) before heading to my gate. I made myself comfortable for the long wait.

This is what Greenland looked like as we flew over. Image found here.

The general travel process was rather long, from boarding to take-off, the flight itself, and then getting off the plane and waiting in a LONG line for customs. I was so exhausted and overheated; it was probably the first time I’ve felt hot on a flight. I was so happy to get back to my apartment and sleep after such a long day. But what a fun trip overall!

Iceland: Day 3

This was my last full day in Iceland, and it was blessed with beautiful sunshine! The other two days were cloudy on-and-off, but this day was gorgeous throughout.

After breakfast at the hostel (this time with the addition of danishes), we took a shuttle to go horseback riding with ís Hestar. I was so excited for this outing: I've never grown out of my pony phase, and I love horses. The ride wasn't long, but when we arrived it felt like we were very far away from any cities. We were surrounded by more lava fields, lots of flowers, and real trees (in Reykjavik, the trees were all short and stumpy).

We were part of a big group, so there were probably about thirty of us getting paired with our own Icelandic horses (they are their own breed, and are smaller and furrier than "regular" horses). The farm we went to rescues horses who are on average 10-15 years old in order to give them a second chance. There were so many horses there, and I was impressed that many of the staff members knew all the horses by name (of course I can’t remember the name of my horse because he had an Icelandic name). As they paired us with our rides, Hannah gave me the good advice to claim I had never ridden a horse before; that way we would get the calm horses. This totally worked, and my horse just followed the drill the whole time. Once we all were on our horses, it was time to go!

Here's Hannah on her horse.

Our ride was absolutely amazing. I will let the photos speak for themselves:

And here’s a fun fact: Iceland has no equine diseases, so none of their horses are vaccinated. Who knew?

I was having so much time!

This is an inactive volcano in the distance.

This was my horse!

After the ride, we sat outside on the terrace to enjoy a cup a hot chocolate. It was the perfect ending to the perfect excursion!

The horseback riding was just in the morning, so we spent the rest of the day in downtown Reykjavik. We did some more shopping, and though I had planned to buy gifts for my family, I ended up buying more things for myself. But it was my vacation, right?

We passed this sign every time we walked toward the downtown area. The smiley sperm in the condom hat cracked me up.

This is Hallgrimskirkja, a famous old church.

We saw (but did not visit) the Icelandic Punk Museum.

This pig statue was celebrating the World Cup; it was the first time in 47 years that the Icelandic team made it to the competition.

This is the seafood stew and mystery fish dish at Icelandic Street Food.

We had a late lunch at Icelandic Street Food. I am SO glad Hannah suggested this place. The business model of this restaurant was pretty neat. They only offered three entrées: a seafood stew, a lamb stew, or a fish dish that looked like mashed potatoes. But as long as you ordered one entrée, you could get free refills on any of the entrées, plus free bread, carrot cake, and coconut macaroons. What a deal! The seafood stew was good (although I’m not sure all the seafood was actually local), and the fish dish tasted just like gefilte fish!

Afterward we headed back to the hostel for a yoga class (compliments of our stay). There were only five of us who partook in the class, but that’s probably a good thing: the room let in a lot of sunlight, and the small space became quite hot very quickly (the yoga was not promoted as hot yoga, mind you). But the class had great energy; the two men in class had powerful “ohms” that added an intense vibe to the class. Hannah and I were pretty sweaty after class, so we cleaned ourselves up before heading out again.

A beer flight at Icelandic Craft Bar. Image found here.

Because we had had a late lunch, we weren’t really hungry for dinner. But we had received coupons for the other restaurant earlier for free beers at their sister bar, Icelandic Craft Bar. I don’t drink beer, but I figured Hannah could get two beers, and I would get something else. It was definitely a beer place, but I tried what they called “cider” (it wasn’t like hard apple cider at all, but more like some sort of clear spirit mixed with some rhubarb mix). It was very good! I also tried Brennivín, which is Iceland’s home spirit. Our bartender (who from Los Angeles of all places) described the taste as “the life of a sailor.” So I assumed it would be salty, harsh, and have a sad ending. But it wasn’t like that at all! The flavor is citrusy and floral, and it is so smooth. It was so good that I had two shots of it, and I bought a bottle to take home with me.

Since this was my last night in Iceland, it was fun just hanging out at the bar and chatting. We met another American, a young woman who was traveling on her own. It sounded like she was making adventures for herself: she got a rune tattoo, and she joined Tinder so she could meet men in Iceland. I don’t know if I’m jealous of her wild spirit or scared for her own life…

Then we got ice cream one more time before going home. The place didn’t have sprinkles (I’m not even sure if the girl knew that word), but there were miniature M&M's, so that more than sufficed my need to have extra sugar with my dessert.

We saw the prettiest sunset as we were walking back. It was like Iceland's way of giving me a nice send-off.

Once we got back to the hostel, Hannah and I stayed up late having “girl talk” in classic sleepover style. This was such a fun evening to end this trip!

Iceland: Day 2

On our second day in Iceland, a false fire alarm woke us up at 5:30. It felt like college all over again, like someone had burnt popcorn in the microwave. One of my biggest fears is getting caught in a fire, so with my heart pounding, even for a false alarm, I could not go back to sleep. So our second day got a bit of an earlier start than we had planned!

We had breakfast in the hostel, which was a nice option (although they were late in setting it up, which was annoying since we had been up for about two hours already!). For ~$15 each we could partake in a buffet which included bread (for toast or sandwiches [there were also cheese/meat/tomato/cucumber slices), skyr (Iceland's version of yogurt), cereal, and hard-boiled eggs. So we filled ourselves up since we weren't sure when we would eat next.

We rented a car that day to explore the southern coast of the country. Hannah already had a plan for where we would stop along the way, so I just enjoyed the ride (and also napped...).

Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss, a big waterfall that is quite the tourist attraction (I even found a postcard featuring it). Iceland had a very rainy spring and early summer, so the water was rushing; it was quite the sight!

We walked behind the waterfall, so we got a little wet from the mist.

When we had talked to someone at the tourist office downtown the previous day, we told him we were going to see the falls. He told us about a smaller, less-known waterfall (called Gljúfrabúl) that was just a short walk from the bigger one. So we took his advice to check it out. 

Notice the little sheep at the bottom of the photo!

We walked past some small waterfalls before reaching the one we wanted to get to. This one was inside of a cavern, so we had to use stepping stones in the water to get inside of the cave to see the falls. That was quite the balancing act, especially since people were trying to get out while we were trying to get in, but there's only one path!

Picture by Hannah Churn

After that we drove a little while longer to get to Skógafoss, a waterfall that Hannah visited the last time she was in Iceland. There is a tall set of stairs to get to the top, and all of my gym classes definitely prepared me for that climb!

This was a mountain near the falls. We saw a lot of these mossy mountains.

There are the falls, and you can see the winding staircase to the right in the photo.

Picture by Hannah Churn

This is what the falls looked like at the top.

There was a long trail that we could hike at the top of the falls, but we didn't have time to linger. We were off to our next stop, Dyrhólaey, to see the black sand beaches. They weren't beaches where people lay out or play in the surf; it can actually be dangerous to swim there. So we just took some photos before moving on to our next adventure.

We made a quick stop to see Sólheimajökull, a glacier that, like all other glaciers, is melting and shrinking in size due to climate change.

First we saw this big pond of water, and soon realized this was water that used to be part of the glacier.

You can see how enormous the glacier is: those tiny dots by the water at the bottom of the picture are people!

Then we were back on the road. We saw more misty mountains, and lots of happy cows, sheep and horses.

Our last stop was to check out a pool that Hannah wanted to visit. This wasn't a hot spring, but the pool was heated by geothermal energy. We had to hike in the rain to get there, but Hannah did get her quick dip in!

We saw these pretty purple flowers EVERYWHERE!

We were walking along this valley to get to the pool.

Hannah enjoyed her brief swim, even if it was raining a bit!

We finally saw a bit of blue sky as we were heading home. Such amazing landscapes!

We wanted to make sure we returned the rental car on time, so we were bookin' it back; it was fun reading 110 on the speedometer, even though that was in kilometers. As we drove back we saw a fence with bras all over it, an Arion bank, valleys of steam, and little hobbit houses nestled at the base of some of the mountains. But it was mostly lava fields (i.e. the usual).

Image found here

We got the car back just in time so that we could head to the Harpa for a showing of "Icelandic Sagas," a funny performance that summarized many of the viking stories. The room was much smaller than I expected for such a well-known performance hall, and for the ~$40 I paid for each ticket, I was surprised by the minimal set and the fact that the show only had two actors in it. I was amused and entertained, but the experience was like expecting to go to the Kennedy Center and ending up at Atlas Theater: still good, but not what you thought you had paid for. But we then went out for Indian food at a place called Gandhi, and that made it all better. The atmosphere was quiet and romantic actually, and the food was delicious. Then we had some ice cream as we walked back to the hostel.

Yet another busy day!