Bread Pudding With Bananas and Cream Cheese

2Bleu's Note:

This is just 2bleu good! You make this the night before, and serve for breakfast or brunch.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 8 ounces French bread , cubed (or Challah bread)
• 4 ounces neufchatel cheese, cut into small cubes or 4 ounces cream cheese
• 2 bananas , sliced
• 3 large eggs
• 2 cups 2% low-fat milk
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Arrange half of bread cubes in a lightly greased 8x8 pan. Sprinkle evenly with cream cheese and bananas. Top with remaining bread cubes.
2. Whisk together eggs, milk, sugar, butter and maple syrup. Pour over bread mixture, pressing bread cubes to absorb the moisture. Cover and chill for 8 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F Sprinkle with cinnamon, and bake covered for 30 minutes.
4. Uncover and bake 30 min more or till lightly browned and set. Let stand a few minutes before serving.

Reviews

[Sydney Mike]

Although I usually use a whole grain bread for bread puddings, this time around I actually had enough French bread that wasn't quite fresh, so used that & we were happily satisfied with the result! Loved the banana & cream cheese combo & will certainly make this pudding again! This is now in my keeper file! Thanks for sharing it! [Tagged & made in Please Review My Recipe]

[bluemoon downunder]

Delicious. Loved the cinnamon and maple syrup in this bread and butter pudding: a great blend of flavours. The cinnamon prompted me to add one thinly sliced Granny Smith apple in with the bananas. I halved the sugar (and that was just the right sweetness for us). In view of Maito's trouble with the mixture sticking to the covering in the earlier part of the cooking, I domed some kitchen foil - and there was no problem. Great everyday dish and certainly good enough to serve to guests, maybe with a dash of rum? This would also taste great made with raisin bread. And it would be so very easy to double if you were feeding a crowd. Thanks for sharing another super recipe, 2Bleu. Made for PRMR.

[Maito]

I made half a recipe into individual bread puddings, and served them for dessert. I removed the crust from the bread and soaked them overnight. I did cut a tablespoon out of both the sugar and the maple syrup, and it was the right sweetness for us. I also used light cream cheese and left out the butter to make this low fat. I added a tablespoon of banana rum, but wished I had added more, along with maybe a bit of vanilla, salt and nutmeg to punch up the flavor a little (I am not sure if this is related to the lower fat version). It puffed up a lot in the oven, but then fell back down as cooling. If I were to make this again, I would omit the covering portion in the oven, as it stuck to the bread. Despite the room for improvement, we still really liked this as is, and appreciated the new twist on bread pudding that included the cream cheese.