Heavenly Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding Muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line or grease 12 muffin cups.

Chop bread into bite size (about 1 inch) cubes and place in large mixing bowl. Combine milk and cream, and pour over bread. Mix bread with cream and milk, then allow to sit for 5 to 10 minutes (the older and more stale your bread the longer it may need to sit in order to soften up).

While bread is resting melt butter in microwave, and then place in refrigerator to cool. Combine eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat lightly. Beat in cooled butter. Pour over bread mixture, and mix gently to combine.

In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and pumpkin pie spice. Pour over bread mixture and mix until combined. Pour in chocolate chips and mix.

Place mixture into prepared muffin pan. Try to put an even amount of bread chunks, liquid mixture and chocolate chips into each.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Notes:
*Butter – you may use unsalted butter if you like, just add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the recipe.
*Pumpkin pie spice – if you don’t have this handy spice mix, just use cinnamon and nutmeg. I would recommend using 2 parts cinnamon to 1 part nutmeg (or even less, depending on how much you like nutmeg).
*Muffin liners – if the liners are too thin you might find that some butter has come through during cooking. This won’t affect the taste at all, but it might make handling the muffins a little bit messy. When this happens I just place mine on a paper towel after removing them from the pan.