Recipe: Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce

From: Susan,.TN

Bread Pudding

3 cups milk
1 1/2 cups diced stale bread*
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins or chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Butter a baking dish. Scald milk. Put bread in baking dish and pour milk over it.
Combine eggs, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Stir into bread mixture.
Stir in raisins or nuts.
Place baking dish in a roasting pan or bain-maire and fill roasting pan with hot water to halfway up baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool slightly and serve with Custard Sauce or Bourbon Sauce (recipes follow)
*Note: Use good French bread. If you have none stale, dice and place in a 200 degree oven until it hardens but doesn't quite brown.

Custard Sauce

2 eggs slightly beaten
3 tablespoons sugar
dash of salt
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine eggs, sugar, and salt in top pot of double boiler. Stir in milk.
Cook over hot but not boiling water, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens enough to coat the spoon.
Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and chill.

Bourbon Sauce

2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup bourbon whiskey*

Combine sugar and egg in the top of a double boiler, beat until well mixed. Stir in melted butter.

Cook over simmering water until the sugar dissolves and the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat. Stir in lemon juice, nutmeg, and bourbon.

*Note: Use only good quality bourbon. Remember, if it isn't good enough to drink, it isn't good enough to cook with.