Pudín de Pan

I decided to make this because a) The french bread I bought went stale, and (b) I've been daydreaming about bread pudding with bourbon sauce since tasting the glorious gumbo over at Crawdaddy's** this weekend.  

This takes about a minute to whip up, and you can make and eat dinner while you're waiting for the mix to set up... ahem... or you could not eat dinner at all and instead watch two or three episodes of Kell on Earth. It's a pretty filling dessert (and I kinda lost my appetite after watching Skinner cry her eyes out anyway), so it's your call.

Follow the jump for the recipe and possibly more trash talk


I've been making this for years, and the original recipe came from a cookbook I bought when I was in New Orleans ten years ago. I have since lost the book, but this is the general idea. You don't need a million eggs, whole milk, lots of sugar or a ton of butter like all the other recipes that come up in an epicurious search. You could even substitute a healthier bread if that's what's going bad in your kitchen (something salty like rye or pumpernickel would go really well and cut the sweetness.)

Bread Pudding

1 loaf stale French bread, cut into 1½-inch pieces
2 cups fat free milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup sugar
¾ Tbs. vanilla
¼ tsp. allspice
¼ tsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 Tbs. unsalted butter

Makes 4 large servings

1. Place the bread pieces into a medium bowl and add milk. With your hands or a large spoon, delicately mix the two together, to cover. (Some recipes recommend squishing the bread pieces with your hands, but I like to maintain the square shape of the pieces.)

 2. In a small bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, spices and salt. Add all this to the bread/milk mixture to cover.

3. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours. You know it's done when the bread is all plumped up and there's barely any liquid left in the bowl. Like this:

 4. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Meanwhile melt down the tablespoon of butter. Pour into a 9x9 baking dish (er, or a round one like i used here) covering bottom and sides completely. Add th1e bread mixture and bake for about 35 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the edges just start to pull away from the pan.

5. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack. 

Bourbon Sauce

Oh jeez-- did you drink up all the bourbon? Got a brown liquor that tastes delicious? Ok, good, then just use that instead. Sure, all bourbons are whiskeys, but not all whiskeys are bourbon. Just don't use Southern Comfort-- it's neither and it's disgusting. A blended scotch works just fine for me.

½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbs. whiskey

1. In a small saucepan melt the butter under medium heat.
2. Whisk in the sugar and egg. You have to whisk this constantly for about 5 minutes to get the right consistency.

 3. Once the sauce has thickened, remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the whiskey (hehe). Or bourbon. Or scotch. Whatever.
4. Return to the stove top on medium for 3 more minutes, whisking every so often.

You're done! This sauce is super sweet, and the bread pudding is already pretty moist, so no need to drench it here.

Lightly drizzle onto slices of bread pudding, forget about the vegetables you were going to eat and watch some trash tv. Kelly Cutrone would still think you're a winner.


**wtf El Paso?? Myspace?? Really?? I had to reactivate my account just to check out a bar listing or two. It's gross and I wish someone else in this town would figure out how to use a facebook account and make a crappy website. Ugh.