We had a lot of left over
homemade rolls from our Christmas celebration with my in laws this past weekend. We don't eat much bread these days, so I looked around to see what we had that I could use them with.....we had a lot of sweet potatoes. I found a bread pudding recipe that incorporated sweet potatoes because that seemed like a delicious combo. It happened to be from the delicious Paula Deen. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, it wasn't really clean.
So I cleaned it up and am sharing it with you all because it is so delicious!! It grew better with every bite until I decided it was pretty much like pumpkin pie. If you want the sugar and butter loaded one, which I'm sure is as amazing, give Paula's
recipe a whirl....but the one below is way less calories and way better for you.
Try using
Kalona Supernatural dairy; we recently discovered it via their cream and it's the best grass fed dairy we've had. We also use their
Farmers Hen House eggs. Check them out at a
store near you, I use Hy-Vee. I really can't say enough good things about them....grass fed, batch pasteurized, not homogenized (their view is the very premise of eat
clean; "...we believe in doing less—not more—when it comes to our food.")
Another note to make; the straining process took a LONG time for me because I think my custard was so thick due to using proportionally more sweet potatoes, just keeping smooshing the mixture through the strainer using a wooden spoon, add more liquid while cooking if it seems to dense. Mine was a thick custard but turned out wonderfully moist, springy, and smooth (so if you skip the straining, I'm sure the consistency would be affected).
Eat Clean Sweet Potato Bread Pudding
chill at least 8 hours before you want to bake it
prep takes about 1 hour
baking takes 40 minutes
grass fed butter for dish
a handful of sliced almonds for topping
1 cup of grass fed cream
3/4 cup of grass fed milk
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 1/2 large (but not HUGE) sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cage free egg yolks
~7 cups of whatever homemade whole grain bread you have on hand, torn into bite size pieces, it should be enough to have 2 layers in an 8 x 8 x 2 baking dish
In a medium sauce pan, boil the sweet potatoes to soften. While that happens, melt a bit of butter in an 8 x 8 dish, use a napkin or paper towel to spread it around (greasing the dish). Combine the dairy, agave, vanilla, spices in a bowl. Once the potatoes are soft, drain and mash. Put the dairy mixture and mashed sweet potatoes into the sauce pan. Bring to just a boil. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Put a bit of the sweet potato mixture into the eggs while whisking constantly (this is to warm the egg yolks up so they don't cook immediately when you dump them into the sauce pan), add another bit of sweet potato mixture into the eggs again while whisking constantly. Pour egg mixture into the sauce pan. Over medium-high heat, stir mixture constantly until it's thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Strain the custard and reserve.
Put one layer of bread pieces in the greased dish, pour half of the custard over the bread. Put the rest of the pieces on top of that and cover with remaining custard. Jiggle dish to settle. Chill covered for 8 hours or overnight.
Top with sliced almonds, bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until set.
