Sticky Toffee Gingerbread Bread Pudding

For the gingerbread cake:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in molasses and beat. Tip: To prevent the molasses from sticking to the measuring cup, you can first spray the cup with a non-stick vegetable spray.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk into the butter mixture and make sure you end with dry ingredients. Beat on low just until incorporated (do not over-beat).

Pour the batter into a greased or sprayed 9-inch round cake pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and let the cake cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing cake from pan. Keep the oven on.

Allow the cake to cool just a bit and then cut the gingerbread into tiny squares. Place cake squares on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for an additional 10 minutes to dry out a bit. When done remove the pan from the oven and drop the temperature to 325 F.

Fill eight 3-ounce ramekins or four 6-ounce ramekins with the gingerbread cubes.

For the custard:
Pour half-and-half, sugar, eggs, egg yolks and vanilla into a bowl and whisk until well mixed. Pour 1/4 cup of custard over the gingerbread cake in each ramekin.

Place the ramekins in a large baking pan and bake for 40-50 minutes at 325 F until the custard is completely set.

For the Sticky Toffee Sauce:
Combine butter, heavy cream and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Constantly stir until mixture begins to boil. Turn heat down a bit and continue to simmer until it darkens and thickens a bit which takes between 8-10 minutes. Pour over warm bread pudding and serve.

The cake recipe was adapted from joyofbaking.com.