CINNAMON APPLE BREAD PUDDING

Yum! Do you love a good, warm, cinnamon'y' bread pudding on a chilly Fall day? This is another good Autumn recipe, and a good way to incorporate some of those apples that you've been picking. We are in the middle of our annual Faith Promise Missions Conference and we are feeding the missionaries dinner each night. We thought this one would go over well, and it surely did.
The original recipe had twice the amount of sugar called for here. It was good, but way too sweet. So we reduced the amount of sugar (since we were working with a sweeter bread). And the results were WONDERFUL! I love this because it's almost like eating baked french toast, but better. You will love the crispy, crumb topping too.

CINNAMON APPLE BREAD PUDDING

1 cup white sugar
5 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups cubed - iced cinnamon swirl bread (you can do cinnamon-raisin if you prefer)
1 large yellow delicious apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup chopped pecans, optional
cinnamon-sugar mixture

Sauce:

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup apple juice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan. Place bread cubes in pan. Mix together sugar, eggs and milk in a bowl, add vanilla. Pour over bread cubes and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Sprinkle diced apple evenly over the top. In a separate bowl, crumble together the brown sugar, flour, butter and pecans. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture evenly over the top. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar mixture. Bake for 35 - 45 minutes, or until set (no longer 'jiggly' in the middle). Remove from oven.

For sauce: Mix together sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla in a saucepan. Over medium heat, stir together until sugar is melted. Add apple juice and stir well. Pour warm over bread pudding. Delicious served warm with ice cream!