Pan de Calatrava "Spanish Bread Pudding"

If you like flan, then you will probably also love Pan de Calatrava. This custard bread pudding is typical of the Murcian region in the southeast of Spain.

This tasty traditional Spanish recipe is essentially a basic flan recipe only with some day old bread or muffins added. This gives it a little stiffer consistency. When in Murcia, you will see this commonly offered as a home-made dessert option after lunch.

You can really customize this dessert if you are feeling creative. Beyond the basic recipe, I have added rum and ground almonds to mine. You can also add a little coffee flavor if that tempts you!

I use day-old baguette bread for my recipe (with the crust removed). Sometimes in Spain you see this made with magdalenas , a light, lemon-flavored muffin. You can find that recipe here if you would like to try this dessert using the muffins.

Give this one a try, it is really tasty and easy to make! Enjoy!





Serves: 4-6
Preparation time: about 1 hour 15 minutes


INGREDIENTS

2 large eggs
1 egg yolk
12 oz. (1-1/2 cups) milk
2 TB rum
2 TB unsalted almonds finely ground
about 2 cups day old bread (without crust) or magadalenas torn into small pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1 ts lemon juice
2 pieces of lemon peel
1/2 ts ground cinnamon
1/8 ts ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
Optional: 1 TB espresso


DIRECTIONS

As a note, you probably should make this the day before you plan on serving as it needs to fully chill.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Begin by adding 1/4 cup of the sugar to a hot small pan. Move the sugar around while it melts to form caramel. You are looking for a nice dark golden brown color, don't overcook it (dark brown) as you will burn the caramel.

I use a 6 inch by 9 inch bread loaf pan to make this. Take the hot caramel and coat the entire bottom of the pan. Set aside to cool.

Place the milk in small sauce pan and add the rum, lemon juice, lemon peel, cinnamon, nutmeg and pinch of salt. Slowly heat the milk, but don't bring it to a full boil. Cook the milk for about 5 minutes and remove from the heat so it slowly cools a little. Remove the lemon peel.

Pour a little of the milk mixture over the bread to slightly soak it.

Beat together the eggs and yolk with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and the ground almonds. Pour a little of the milk mixture (about 1/4 cup) into the eggs and stir vigorously. Now pour the egg mixture back into the remaining milk and mix well.

You will need to prepare a bath for custard. You will need a small baking dish slightly larger than the bread pan. Boil enough water to fill up the baking dish so you will have about 1" of water surrounding the bread pan.

Pour the milk and egg mixture into the pan over the caramel. Pour in the wet bread on top and evenly distribute it in the pan. Place the bread pan in the baking dish with the boiling water. Put in the oven to bake for about 45 minutes or until the custard sets.

Let fully cool in the refrigerator, remove from the bread pan (with caramel on top for presentation), and serve!

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