John's vanilla pudding bread

While I was taking a nap one Sunday, John found this recipe online and decided to make it.  I'm not sure where he found it, and the paper copy of the recipe I have doesn't even have a title to look up, so I can't credit the source, which I always like to do.  However, I learned at a cooking class that you can't copyright a recipe.  Interesting.  I think my food blog activity had fallen off the charts because I was afraid someone, somewhere was going to come after me.  It is true that a couple of the recipes on here are all mine, but for the most part, this is just a collection of my favorite recipes that I get from different places.  Family, friends, the Internet, books... just stuff I find and want to keep in one central location, but because of the public nature of blogs, I was feeling uneasy, despite the fact that my blogs aren't exactly what you'd call "high traffic" chances of people seeing something and getting upset are pretty slim.  Anyway, then I found out you can't copyright a recipe.  Basically the fact that two different people can follow the exact same recipe to the letter, and still achieve different results, makes it difficult to copyright.  Add that to the fact that all you have to do is change up the recipe just a little bit: add a little extra vanilla, a little less salt, omit something, add something, and the recipe is now yours.

Of course, any pictures I add are always my own, I never use someone else's, those can definitely be copyrighted and are the property of the photographer, but anyways, my point is, I'm feeling a little less anxiety over this whole food blog.  Now I just have to branch out and make new stuff that's worth blogging about- there's been plenty of recipes that aren't worth writing down.

Anyway, John found a bread recipe online.  After a few trials and errors, I think he's getting it down. The recipe is pretty vague and confusing, with no directions on how to mix the ingredients together, so John just throws them all together and mixes it up. I am sure Alton Brown might have something to say about the proper mixing method, but the kids love it (even the not-so-successful attempts) and devour both loaves pretty quickly, so in the end that's all that matters.  (Of course in the off chance that someone else reads this and has any input, I'd love to hear it.)

John's Vanilla Pudding Bread

4 1/2 cups self rising flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 cups sugar
12 oz instant vanilla pudding
2 cups oil
1 1/2 cups milk
8 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups nuts (chopped)

Preheat oven to 325.  Grease 2 loaf pans. Mix one teaspoon cinnamon and two teaspoons of sugar (for each loaf pan) and set aside.  Coat bottom and sides of pan with sugar mixture, and reserve remaining sugar mixture for top of bread batter. Fill each pan about 1/2 full with batter mixture above. Sprinkle top with remaining mix of cinnamon and sugar (split between the two pans).  Bake at 325 for about 50 minutes or until brown.