Pumpkin bread pudding

1 pudding

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
4 Eggs
3 cups Whole milk
1 pounds Mashed pumpkin canned will work
1 cup Brown sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
½ cup Unsalted butter
1 Egg
1 cup Sugar
½ teaspoon Freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1½ quart Torn bread pieces
1 cup Dark raisins
2 tablespoons Whole milk
½ cup Bourbon

Directions

BOURBON SAUCE

Beat eggs in a large bowl. Add milk and beat again. Stir in pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and vanilla. Add bread pieces and press with your hands to submerge bread in milk mixture. (If you have the time, cover and refrigerate the mixture several hours or overnight; break up the bread the next day and bake as directed; if not, proceed as follows.)

Set the mixture aside 15 minutes.

Use your fingers to break up the chunks of bread. Set aside 15 minutes, and repeat. Add raisins. Heat oven to 350 F.

Generously butter a 2-quart baking dish. Fill the dish with bread pudding mixture and bake at 350 F. for one hour, or until the pudding is set.

Serve warm, hot or cold with hot bourbon sauce. Warm is best.

(Pudding reheats well in a microwave on medium setting.) To make bourbon sauce: Use unsalted real butter for the best bourbon sauce; margarine doesn't make a great sauce.

Melt butter in a bowl set over hot but not boiling water. Combine egg, sugar and milk in a small bowl; beat until light colored. Add to butter and beat with a whisk over hot water until sugar dissolves ~ at least 5 minutes. Add bourbon and stir. Remove from stove and serve over pumpkin bread pudding.

Note: This sauce is extremely strong, akin to eggnog. If you want less bourbon flavor, use ¼ cup bourbon and ¼ cup half-and-half or whole milk. You can also use another liquor to substitute for bourbon. Rum, brandy or cognac are all good candidates.

About the bread: Good choices for bread pudding are breads with substance that are a little stale. Day-old whole wheat, sourdough and French-style bread, leftover biscuits, and rolls all will work, as will sweetened breads, croissants and others. If you are starting with fresh loaf bread, dry it in a low oven for 30 minutes or so. An exact amount of bread is not critical to the success of the recipe, though a larger proportion of bread to liquid makes a denser pudding; a larger proportion of custard makes a creamier pudding, which we like better.

From Food Editor Sarah Fritschner's 10/19/94"Pumpkins: Beyond Pie" article in "The (Louisville, KY) Courier-Journal." Pg. C4. Posted by Cathy Harned.

Submitted By CATHY HARNED On 10-24-94

Related recipes