Mamou's Bread Pudding

This is a recipe from my great grandmother. It's another heart clogger but it's a pretty simple dish to make if you are having a lot of people over for dinner.

1 loaf of stale French bread broken up into bite size pieces
6 eggs beaten
1 Tbsp fresh ground nutmeg (per ground will suffice),
additional teaspoon nutmeg reserved for sprinkling
2 cups sugar
12 oz. evaporated milk
4 oz unsalted butter sliced into pat size pieces
1 teaspoon baking powder
9x13 baking pan sprayed with butter spray or greased with butter

Preheat oven to 375

Place the bread pieces in a large bowl

In a separate bowl stir sugar into beaten eggs. Gradually stir in nutmeg and 4 oz. of evaporated milk. Stir well, add remaining milk and baking powder and stir some more.

Pour the mixture over the bread. Mix with your hands until pieces of bread are thoroughly coated. Be sure to mix it several times so they all get soaked evenly. You've come this far, this is the step you really want to get right.

Pour the mixture into the pan. Sprinkle with remaining nutmeg and put butter pats on top evenly placed throughout.

Bake for 40 minutes

Sauce:

1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg beaten
rum or whiskey to taste

Cream butter and sugar in sauce pan

add the egg and stir rapidly so that the egg doesn't curdle.
When well mixed, allow to cool (or serve warm. I prefer warm)
Add a jigger (or 2) of whiskey or rum to taste

some notes: this can serve up to 12 people, maybe more...

It’s important that you keep the heat on low when cooking the sauce. You don't want the egg to cook because it will ruin the texture.

I've made this recipe using splenda as a substitute for the sugar in the bread pudding part and it works great. However it doesn't work with the sauce.

Also...even though it's called bread "pudding" it doesn't have the consistency of pudding and should be served warm.