Shake those peaches

 

I am so happy to have my first comment ever!  It's on my peaches and cream post, if you're interested.  Since Andrea's into peaches and I still am, too, here's a peek at another scrumdiddlyumptious summer peach dessert I made.  I took inspiration from this Lemon-Spice Bread Pudding with Sauteed Peaches, and used a little less butter, cream, and sugar, and a lot more vanilla bean.  I had these gorgeous white peaches from a weekend trip to Pennsylvania and they were as fragrant and flavorful as any peach I've ever bit into.  So I started with a beautiful crusty day-old loaf and hacked away with my pathetic serrated knife (anyone have recommendations for a good bread knife?).

After cubing the bread, I tossed with melted butter and baked until golden, toasty, and glistening.  You can imagine how good just those two ingredients with a little heat underneath smelled.  Unfortunately, I didn't capture a good image of the bread all brown and perfect.  It's still a little underdone here, but you get the drift...

Meanwhile, I steeped the milk and cream (mmm, cream..) with a big ol' vanilla bean and ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom.  I scraped the vanilla bean seeds as much as I could, but ended up plopping the whole bean in to steep.  It was a smart move.  After tossing the toasted bread cubes and egg mixture in to soak up, the smell entrenched in that bread was unbelievable.

After baking for another 50 minutes, the bread pudding and sauteed fruit made the whole house smell like a sunny meadow of butter and peaches.  Oh, summer love...