The Family Kitchen: Double Cinnamon bread pudding inspired by my Aunt Ida's bread pudding recipe

 I have wanted to make bread pudding forever. I felt like it was fate when I found a recipe of my Aunt Ida's for Cinnamon Bread Pudding. I used her recipe as inspiration and made some adjustments to make it my own. I am calling this a Double Cinnamon Bread Pudding with Bourbon sauce. It was a huge hit at our July 4th meal and even those who have not been big fans of bread pudding in the past liked it. 

The Ingredients:

1 loaf of cinnamon bread cubed (see notes)

5 TBSP butter

8 beaten eggs

4 C milk

1 C sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp cinnamon

The Recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and use 1 TBSP of butter to coat the inside of a 9x13 baking dish.

Cut bread into cubes. If using stale bread go ahead and place in the buttered dish. If not see notes regarding how to treat bread to dry it. 

Melt the remaining 4 TBSP of butter and drizzle over the bread pieces. 

In a bowl, add eggs and beat, then add the remaining ingredients and mix well. 

Pour this mixture over the bread and make sure to evenly coat each piece. 

Bake for 1 hour or until the top of the bread pudding springs back after lightly touching it with a fork. 

Notes:

If you use stale bread you can just place into the baking dish once cubed but if you have a fresh loaf, you can dry out the bread by placing the cubes on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven a cook for 5-10 minutes until bread is dry but do not toast. For bread pudding it is important to use dried out bread so the bread will soak up all the egg mixture instead of it sinking to the bottom of the dish. 

Borbon Sauce

1/3 C butter

1/2 C brown sugar

2/3 C heavy whipping cream

2-3 TBSP bourbon

In a medium saucepan over low heat combine all ingredients. Constantly stir until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly. Cook uncovered for 5 minutes and remove from the heat

Store in a glass container like a mason jar for easily being able to reheat. 

Vanilla Sauce

1/2 C butter

1/2 C heavy whipping cream

1 C granulated sugar

1 1/2-2 tsp vanilla extract

A sprinkle of additional vanilla powder if desired. 

In a saucepan over medium low heat melt the butter with all other ingredients. 

Stir constantly until the sugar is dissolved and has a syrup like consistency. It should coat the back of a teaspoon. The sauce will thicken as it cools. 

Like the Bourbon sauce store in a glass container for easy reheating in the microwave. 

Both of these sauces were amazing. I was partial to the bourbon sauce. Keep in mind. It will smell very strong, but the alcohol was cooked out, so it does not taste strong. It is sweeter. The vanilla has a lot of sugar, so it was a bit sweet for me. Both of these sauces would be great on other desserts as well.