Just about every buffet in Las Vegas serves bread pudding. There isn't much to bread pudding - leftover bread and/or sweet rolls torn into pieces and baked with egg custard that has vanilla in it. The best is just plain day-old French bread because sweet rolls and Danish pastries make it too sweet. Paula Deen has a recipe on the Net for bread pudding made with a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. She must get a commission from that company to come up with ways to use their product. And cardiac surgeons for increasing their business.

There is usually a sauce to go with it, and that's where there is more variation. Some places serve a separate vanilla-flavored or liquor-flavored custard sauce, sometimes warm, that you spoon over your serving. Other cooks pour the sauce over the top of the whole pudding in the serving dish.



This recipe is for the latter style.

Amaretto Sauce
1/2 cup (unsalted) butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup Amaretto
1 egg yolk (you saved it when you made the egg white above)

Melt the butter and sugar together over low heat, stirring constantly. Add Amaretto and egg yolk. Heat slowly for 1 to 2 minutes to set egg. Poke holes in the baked bread pudding and pour the sauce over it.

Here is a recipe for the bread pudding in case you don't have your own:
Bread Pudding
1 loaf stale French bread
4 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
(1 cup raisins)
1 tablespoon vanilla
5 eggs + 1 white, beaten
(Splash of Amaretto)
(Cinnamon sugar sprinkle)

Soak the bread in the milk. Add sugar, (raisins), and vanilla. Add eggs and Amaretto if used. Mix very lightly and pour into a well-buttered baking dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar if desired. Set the dish in larger dish of water and bake 30 to 45 minutes at 375 degrees until it tests clean with a table knife halfway from the edge.

PS: I just read Paula Deen's recipe through. It's not enough to use sweet, frosted doughnuts, she's got fruit cocktail and sweetened condensed milk in there in addition to the raisins. Makes my teeth ache. Of course, now it will nag at me until I get my hands on more doughnuts than I can eat as is and try out Paula's recipes. See Grumpy's blog: The Truth About Southern Women. I think that particular recipe tops this bread pudding one.