Bread Pudding

There's few better ways to use up leftover stale bread than by soaking it with custard and baking it in the oven. This particular pudding was made with leftover holiday stollen -- chock full of candied fruits and raisins, with little pockets of melted frosting, this pudding didn't even need the requisite bourbon sauce.

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Bread Pudding
serves 8-10

4 1/2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
6 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
12 oz day old French or Italian loaf, diced into 1 inch cubes (we used stollen in the above photo)
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup bourbon

Warm bourbon gently and pour over raisins. Allow to sit and plump until needed.

Preheat oven to 350ยบ
Butter a large baking dish and set aside.

Pour milk into a heavy medium saucepan. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into milk. Add bean and bring to simmer over medium heat. Allow to cook at a very slow simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove bean and discard.

Whisk eggs and sugar in large bowl. Gradually whisk hot cream into egg mixture. Add bread cubes, raisins, and residual whiskey and allow bread cubes to soak in custard for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure that all cubes get adequate exposure to liquid. Transfer to prepared baking dish.

Place baking dish into a large roasting pan in the middle of the oven. Add boiling water to the roasting pan to a depth of about 1 inch. Bake for 1 hour, or until pudding is browned and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Serve with Bourbon sauce.

Bourbon Sauce
8 T butter, cut into pieces
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup bourbon (or whiskey)

Melt butter in double boiler.
Beat egg with sugar in a medium bowl. Add egg mixture to the butter, and stir constantly for 2-3 minutes until the sugar is fully dissolved (failure to do so will result in curdling). Remove from heat. Allow to cool before whisking bourbon into sauce.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lo, you are going to DESTROY my diet strategy with posts like these.

Seriously. Stop.

Okay, keep going . . . I choose to live vicariously through your yummy-looking recipes!

The Spiteful Chef said...

Everything ALWAYS needs bourbon sauce. Even sandwiches. So frosting may exist, but is just an added bonus. Looks tasty.