Recently, I really enjoy making Japanese milk bread pudding or pan pudding (パンプディング) after watching "The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House". I'm drooling over Kiyo's pan pudding and it seems pretty achievable with minimum effort and using ingredients laying around the house: bread, eggs, milk and sugar. Cooking time will be about 30-40 minutes, with 10 minutes for preparations, so you'll be able to enjoy your bread pudding at the end of the show. The show will also cover the recipe and instructions, as shown below.

Milk bread pudding slightly different from traditional bread pudding because it has bigger ratio on custard, so it'll taste more like flan or crème caramel. The bread crumbs will absorb the custard and become incredibly tender and velvety.

• Ingredients

• 
½ Tbsp unsalted butter (for greasing the baking dish or dishes)
1 slice shokupan (Japanese milk bread)/sandwich bread (make sure your slice is 2 cm thick) and sliced into 16 cubes

• 2 large eggs (50 g each w/o shell)

• ¼ cup sugar

• ⅛ tsp or a pinch of salt
½ tsp pure vanilla extract

• 1½ cups (360 ml) whole milk (you can use reduced-fat or non-dairy milk; however, the taste will be different)

• Pan: Use gratin/casserole baking dish/dishes that could hold 360 ml fluid, it could be one dish around 20 x 20 x 3 cm in size, mine is 25 x 15,5 x 4 cm. or multiple smaller dishes. The dish should be at least 2,5-4 cm deep. The shallower the dishes, the easier to brown the top.

• Instructions

• 1. Gather all the ingredients. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Set the oven rack to middle position.

• 2. Grease the pan with butter. Make sure your dishes are big enough to allow the bread plenty of wiggle room, as the bread pieces will expand in the oven to about 1½ times their original size. Tip: Your Pan Pudding will brown more easily if you use a shallow baking dish with low sides, which allow the hot air to circulate better.

• 3. Cut the shokupan slice into 16 pieces and put them in the baking dish.

• 4. In a medium bowl, crack 2 large eggs and beat until blended.

• 5. Add ¼ cup sugar and 1/8 tsp salt and beat well until the sugar is completely dissolved. You want to make sure all the sugar goes into the custard and is not left in the bowl when you pour.

• 6. Next, add ½ tsp pure vanilla extract and gradually whisk in 1½ cups whole milk. Blend well together

• 7. Slowly pour half of the custard mixture in a thin stream on top of the bread squares. Pause for a minute or two to allow the bread pieces to absorb some of the liquid. Then, pour in the other half of the mixture. It‘s okay if the bread pieces are floating. The custard will cook through in the oven. Tip: You might think that there is not enough bread in the dish, but this bread-to-custard ratio is key to the melt-in-your-mouth texture we want. Do not add more bread or custard.

• 8. Bake the bread pudding at 350ºF (18ºC) for 30–40 minutes, or until the pudding rises and puffs up and the top of the bread is slightly golden. Please adjust the baking time according to your oven. When the bread pudding is nice and golden, remove it from the oven. The bread pudding will deflate and fall once out of the oven, and this is normal.

• 9. When the bread pudding starts to puff up and rise but is not browned yet, make the caramel sauce.

• 10. To make caramel sauce:

• * It takes about 5 minutes to make the caramel sauce and it requires your full attention while making it. (I always made it twice, because it burnt on the first round) If you make the caramel sauce too early, it may solidify. Ideally, you want to finish both the bread pudding and the caramel sauce at the same time.

• * In a small saucepan, combine 2 Tbsp sugar and 1 Tbsp water (at room temperature). Avoid a nonstick pot because it‘s too thin and the inner pot color makes it hard to see the caramel color. Turn on the heat to medium low and let the sugar dissolve completely, without stirring. You can tilt the pot occasionally, but otherwise don‘t touch it until the sugar turns liquid.

• * In the meantime, prepare 1 Tbsp hot water. Have it ready to use in 3–4 minutes when the sauce is done.

• * When the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat to medium high. The hot mixture will start to bubble. You can swirl the saucepan once in a while to mix it, but do not use a utensil because it will cause the sugar to crystallize. When the sugar starts to caramelize, you will see lots of small bubbles. It will slowly turn brown on the edges of the pan.

• * Swirl the pot to incorporate the dark-colored caramelized sugar into the light-colored sugar. Soon, the bubbles will become larger as the sugar mixture caramelizes more and turns an amber color. The caramelized sugar will continue to turn darker and darker. Keep swirling the pot and watch it closely. 

• * After the caramel sauce starts smoking, wait a tiny bit longer until it reaches an optimal medium to dark amber caramel color. Then, turn off the heat. Immediately pour a little bit of the measured hot water onto a spatula into the caramel pot (so your hand is not directly above the pot). 

• * The mixture will boil vigorously and sputter, so be careful not to let it splatter on you. Once this has subsided, slowly add the rest of the hot water. Swirl the saucepan to combine.

To serve: Drizzle the caramel sauce over the hot bread pudding. Serve immediately with a spoon. Tip: If you have some caramel stuck to the pot, pour some milk in and heat up while stirring.

(Bread Pudding Recipe from Namiko Chen's Just One Cookbook website, "Pan Pudding", https://www.justonecookbook.com/pan-pudding/#h-what-is-pan-pudding)

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