For me, all bread pudding will be measured against the bread pudding made by Ukrop’s, from their white house rolls. (It pains me to even go to the Ukrop’s website these days, now that we live 1,000 miles away from that lovely grocery store. We have plenty of fantastic options where we live now, but there are certain things that Ukrop’s does best, and bread pudding is one of them.) That recipe made me like bread pudding for the first time in my life. While my waistline does not thank them, my taste buds certainly did. The cruelest trick was that they served it in little squares on the salad bar. It’s as if they were in cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies that make cholesterol-lowering drugs.
This croissant bread pudding (Barefoot Contessa Cookbook) was not a bad attempt at the greatness of Ukrop’s. The croissants came from Costco, and I don’t recommend trying to bake croissants at home, ever. I tried it once several years ago, and they were a lot of work for a lot of awful. It drives me crazy when people just “whip up a batch of croissants” in a movie, because they take days to make. And even then, I don’t seem to have the knack. So, thanks Costco!
