Old Fashioned Bread Pudding...Fat Tuesday!

Several years ago...The Not Nice Kid was less than a year old...a couple of my best buds and I went to a wedding in Jackson, TN. The rehearsal dinner...which one of my friends was catering as a wedding gift...was held in an old building that used to be a library...and was round!! Lots of shiny old wood and tall windows and...a refrigerator with a wired-up shelf that when you sat 40 pounds of pasta salad on it? Collapsed. Different blog.

But one of the best ideas I've never had (again) is this bread pudding, which was a specialty of the mother of the groom. The secret? The one people do NOT believe when they try it? Hamburger buns. Nasty white soft spongy cheap hamburger buns. Cut into cubes with kitchen scissors. They make for a light and airy bread pudding which not only tastes great out of the oven but freezes well...that's why we had 19 of them in the back of the van on the way to the wedding. (This was the wedding where we went out for breakfast the next day and I lay in the back floorboard of the van until they found me a Taco Bell. I can't do that anymore.)

Sharon Raines Old-Fashioned Bread Pudding

2 cups milk, scalded
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 package hamburger buns
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 stick butter
2 tablespoons bourbon

Lightly grease an 11x9 glass baking dish. Combine milk and butter in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until butter is melted. Let cool. Mix sugar, salt and cinnamon together. Pour milk and butter into beaten eggs; add sugar mixture. With kitchen scissors, cut buns into cubes. Put bread cubes into a large bowl and pour liquid mixture over. Toss to moisten, but don't overdo! You'll get mush.

(You can always throw in extra things that make your family happy. I like a few toasted pecans. Dried cranberries are good, too...but that's because I don't like cooked raisins.)

Pour into baking dish, place that dish into another baking pan filled half full of water. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 mintues. Remove from hot water. Best served warm with Whiskey Sauce.

Whiskey Sauce: Melt one stick of butter, add two cups powdered sugar and bourbon. Mix until smooth and serve warm. (Sharon insisted on Jack Daniels and she would NOT forgive us, but I'm a bourbon person so that's what I use.)

If you freeze this, remove from the freezer and let thaw and then pour the Whiskey Sauce over it. Reheat.