Originally, women baked bread once a week. They save crusts through out the week and used those crusts and whatever bread was left over at the end of the week and made bread pudding from them. We had bread pudding every Saturday night. I guess you could say it was a waste not, want not dessert, and as such, it should be a simple dessert.

Bread, eggs, sugar, milk, raisins, vanilla and cinnamon, plain simple ingredients everyone has in their pantry. Simplicity at it’s best so like it or don’t like it but that is what it is, a simple comforting dessert using leftovers. When you try to doctor this dessert, it gets away from the original intent of the dessert. Instead, if you want to jazz it up, serve it with a scoop of icecream or a dollop of whipped cream and perhaps some caramel sauce or some spiced rum sauce.

Another problem making this dessert, the type of bread used. First of all, it should never be fresh bread and never that sliced bread you can buy. If your bread is fresh, you should cube it and let it out for a day, or bake it in the oven for a bit. Second problem, you must soak the bread long enough in your milk and egg sauce.

In fact, this is how my mother made her bread pudding. She put the STALE bread, milk, half the sugar and the raisins in a double boiler, brought it to the scald point, then turned down the heat to a low simmer and let the bread cook for an hour or so. Then she beat the eggs with the other half of the sugar and added the vanilla and then combined this with the cooked bread. Then she put it in her baking dish and sprinkled it liberally with cinnamon and baked until nicely browned and a bit crisp around the edges. The bread pudding gets sooooooooo nice and fluffy and high this way. It will deflate somewhat of course when it is removed from the oven, but the pudding is divine and the raisins are sooooooo plumped this way.

sue bette: Yes! Savory would be much better, I think.

Anna: I would *love* a copy of the recipe. It sounds really interesting (as do nearly all things Chez Panisse). Would you mind emailing it to me? Email is thekitchensinkblog (at) gmail (dot) com.

janice: Okay, bourbon is probably the way to convince me. You’ve found my weak spot. : )

Melissa: Thank you! Me, you and pipee unite!

Monica h: Yay! Our numbers are swelling! (Though chocolate bread pudding sounds promising.)

Amanda: I’ve seen that pumpkin bread pudding recipe and it looks so good. I think that’s what I’d need to do — make sure there is some other major component (not just a handful of chocolate & nuts). Thanks for the challenge!

Amy: Yes, I think this one was a bit to mooshy. And perhaps I was a little light on the chocolate, yes.

Okay, so you’ve all convinced me not to give up entirely. Such good friends you all are!