Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce
This bread pudding with bourbon sauce is the result of some obsessive tinkering with several recipes from various different sources, all in an effort to come up with my idea of the perfect version. And at this point, perhaps you may be wondering...just what precisely were my parameters for "perfect" bread pudding? Well, they were exacting, but simple. It had to be mercifully easy to prepare, luxuriously textured, and irresistibly scrumptious. In other words, I was aiming for a bread pudding recipe with maximum comfort food credentials (aka one that made me swoon over my fork), but without any fancy bain-marie required (in other words, no fiddly pan of hot water to wrangle). Here's the version that delivers the goods!
Servings 8 servings
Equipment
- baking dish of your choice (about 2 to 3 quarts capacity)
Ingredients
Bread Pudding
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter softened
- 8 ounces day-old French bread, cut into roughly one inch cubes
- 3 large egg yolks
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Bourbon Sauce
- ½ cup light brown sugar (packed)
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- pinch kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons bourbon
Instructions
Prepare the Bread Pudding
- Grease the baking dish with butter.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, eggs, cream, milk, sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until the mixture is thoroughly blended.
- Add the bread cubes and stir to coat. Let stand for 30 minutes, stirring once or twice along the way to help the bread absorb the liquid. In the meantime, heat the oven to 325℉.
- Stir once again, and then pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.
- Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
Prepare the Bourbon Sauce
- In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar and cream over medium heat.
- Continue cooking, whisking frequently, until the mixture comes to a boil. (This should take about 5 minutes.)
- Whisk in the butter and the pinch of salt. Continue cooking about a minute more, or just until the mixture comes back to a boil.
- Remove saucepan from the heat, and then whisk in the bourbon. Allow the sauce to cool slightly before serving.
- To serve, cut the bread pudding into pieces and spoon the warm bourbon sauce over the top.