Red Currant Bakery

Prep the Bread
0 Cut your stale bread into 1"-2" (ish) chunks. If the bread doesn't feel dry, leave it sitting out for a few hours to dry out a bit more.
Custard
3 In a separate large microwave safe mixing bowl, melt the butter in 15 second increments.
4 Add in the sugar, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon and whisk to combine. Crack in the eggs one at a time and whisk to combine after each egg.
5 Pour in the milk and heavy cream and whisk once more.
6 Add the stale bread into the bowl with the custard and really mix it up. I like to use my hands to really massage the custard into the bread.
7 Preheat the oven to 350 F and place a rack in the center of the oven.
8 Leave the bread and custard in the mixing bowl and chop up the chocolate.
Assemble Bread Pudding
9 Once the oven is hot, add half of the bread pudding mixture into your 10.5" x 8" ceramic baking dish.
11 Sprinkle the layer with 3/4 of the milk chocolate.
12 Add the second half of the bread pudding mixture into the pan and sprinkle with the remaining chocolate.
13 Then sprinkle the top with turbinado sugar, basically sprinkle as much as you would with actual sprinkles. Optionally also sprinkle the top with pretzel salt but not as much as the sugar!
14 Bake the bread pudding in the preheated oven for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, rotate the pan 180 degrees and bake for another 40-45 minutes.
15 The bread pudding will puff up and become golden brown. If it starts to get too dark, tent the top with foil.
16 Once baked, remove the pan from the oven and leave it to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving it.
17 Simply spoon out large servings for everyone.
18 Then top with a drizzle of this vanilla custard sauce or just a drizzle of heavy cream.
19 To turn it into french toast the next day, you can just let it cool completely in the pan and then cover it and store it in the fridge.