Kosher Bread Pudding

I love bread pudding, but it's almost always dairy. I whipped up this parve version at home recently and absolutely loved it. The soy chai adds a nice punch of flavor.

• 3 cups Italian bread, cubed
• 2 cups soy chai
• 4 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1/2 tbsp lite olive oil
• 2 shots bourbon or whiskey
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt

Mix everything but the bread until smooth, then mix in the bread. Pour mixture into a nonstick baking pan and let sit for at least 10 minutes so bread can soak up the mixture. Bake for 1 hour at 350. For an espically moist bread pudding, place your baking dish into a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with water until the water reaches about half way to the top of your baking dish. Put the whole caboodle in the oven, treating it like a giant creme brulee.

Since this is parve, there won't be a whiskey sauce. You can make one with veggie margarine, but it's just not as good, so why pretend? Instead of topping a good bread pudding with a merely adequate whiskey sauce, try combining 1 shot bourbon with 3 shot glasses of packed brown sugar (or a larger 3:1 ratio if you want more coating) so the sugar is soaking wet. Sprinkle wet sugar on top of your baked bread pudding and either heat dramatically with a creme brulee torch or just broil within 4 inches or less of the broiler for a few minutes, until the sugars start to carmalize. It'll make an incredibly tasty topping.

Variations:

• Slice 1/2 cup granny smith apple. Pour 1/2 bread mix into pan, layer half the apples. Add 1/4 mix in, layer remaining apples, then top with final 1/4 mix. Bake normally.
• Slice 1 medium banana. Mix in with the bread and liquid then bake normally.