Cranberry Cinnamon Bread Pudding

Being a New Englander, Ken just loves warm puddings... i.e. bread pudding, rice pudding, grapenut pudding, and such.  Since I had part of a loaf of bread that was about to expire, I decided to surprise him with a bread pudding for dessert!  I found a recipe on Allrecipes.com that I liked and modified it to our taste.  I hope you enjoy it too!  The entire house smells like cinnamon and vanilla when you're baking this!

Ingredients:

6 slices day-old bread

3 Tablespoons butter, melted

½ cup craisins

4 eggs, beaten

2 ½ cups milk

½ cup Splenda or 1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

2.  Break bread into small pieces into an 8-inch square baking pan.  Drizzle melted butter over bread.  Sprinkle with craisins.

3.  In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, splenda, cinnamon, and vanilla.  Whisk until well mixed.  Pour this over bread and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soking up the egg mixture.

4.  Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped.

We like to top the warm bread pudding with freshly whipped cream!