New Orleans- Style Bread Pudding with Hard Sauce

 
  
The Easter holiday is coming up fast and this New Orleans-style bread pudding would be perfect to serve for an after-church brunch. It is also economical; if you have been saving up stale bread in your freezer you can just pull that out and transform it  into this delightful and easy dish.

New Orleans-Style Bread Pudding with Hard Sauce

Ingredients
6-8 cups stale french bread, cubed
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
3 eggs
2 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg
4 cups milk

Hard sauce:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp bourbon flavoring or 1 oz.. bourbon (rum may be substituted)

  Directions For the Bread Pudding:

1. Butter a 9 by 13 inch baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine all ingredients. Mixture should be very moist but not soupy. Pour into the buttered dish and bake 1 hour and 15 minutes until top is golden brown. Serve warm with hard sauce.

Directions for Hard Sauce:

Using a hand held mixer, cream butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, beating until all butter is absorbed. Remove from heat and blend in yolks. Pour in cream gradually, stirring constantly. Whisk in vanilla, and bourbon.   The sauce will thicken as it cools. Serve warm on warm bread pudding.

I hope you enjoy this wonderful dessert as much as we did!  And thanks for stopping by!
 -The Mountain Housewife