Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce
This bread pudding with bourbon sauce is my new favorite bread pudding recipe. Cinnamon spiced and drizzled with a warm caramel sauce, it’s easy to make and truly delicious.
Bread Pudding: a Dessert with a Long History
Bread pudding goes all the way back to medieval Europe. Not wanting to waste food, frugal cooks learned to soak stale bread in milk or water and transform it into a comforting pudding.
When this dish made its way to the American South, our unique culinary traditions and ingredients put a new spin on old-world bread pudding. Southern cooks began using leftover French bread (especially in Louisiana, where French influence was strong), biscuits, or other day-old bread. They combined the bread with eggs, sugar, and milk to create a moist, custard-like pudding base. Raisins, walnuts and pecans, and warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla became common additions. The rich blend of flavors reflects the many influences that have shaped Southern cuisine.
The addition of bourbon, rum, or whiskey in some recipes, especially in New Orleans bread pudding, gave the dish a distinct Southern twist. Whether sweet or savory, bread pudding remains a beloved dish across the South.
A Bread Pudding Recipe with Caramel Bourbon Sauce
Bourbon Whiskey (or Apple Juice) for Extra Flavor
I want to talk about the bourbon sauce first. Bourbon’s flavor comes from the aging process of whiskey, and believe it or not, whiskeys can all taste a little different depending on that process. Bourbon adds a kick to the sauce unlike anything else, but if you prefer not to use it, you can use apple juice as a substitute.
The base of the bourbon sauce has a caramel flavor — actually, you could make caramel from the brown sugar and butter. I do add buttermilk to the sauce to give it a little depth, but if you replaced it with heavy cream, you could stop there and have a caramel sauce. With the added whiskey, the flavor just can’t be beat on this bread pudding sauce.
Some bread pudding recipes use maple syrup in the sauce, but I use corn syrup.
NOTE: The bourbon sauce in this recipe is fantastic on protein dishes, too. You can use it on chicken, throw in a few pecans, and get ready for a tasty dinner. It also tastes great as a baste on shrimp and even meatballs.
The Best Bread for Bread Pudding
But this post is about bread pudding, so let’s talk about bread! I’ve tried this recipe over and over and over with different breads for my family to taste as I was creating the recipe for Love Language of the South. My top two favorites are French bread and brioche. I made it just yesterday for a dinner party with the brioche, and it came out so well, that’s my favorite today. Really, that was THE BEST bread pudding ever.
Raisons or No Raisins?
I particularly like my bread pudding with raisins, but the family was coming over and some of my folks prefer it without, so I left them out of yesterday’s batch. As I note in the recipe below, in-season blueberries are also a delicious choice.
Assembling the Bread Pudding
Layering the bread, then custard, and repeating the layers makes all the difference. For the best presentation, I like to top my bread pudding with a few pieces of torn bread that get nice and crusty in the oven.
Drizzle and Enjoy!
With bread pudding on the menu, nobody wants to worry about calories, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is no way I would forego a drizzle of sweet bourbon sauce on this dessert, and I hope you won’t, either.
Easy Bread Pudding Recipe
Ingredients
For the Bread Pudding
- 2 tablespoons melted butter plus more for greasing
- 1 cup half-and-half
- 3 cups whole milk
- 5 large eggs beaten
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 10 cups cubed brioche bread or French bread cubes from a 1-pound loaf, torn into 1-inch pieces
- 1 cup chopped pecans plus more for serving
- 1 cup raisins optional
For the Bourbon Sauce
- 16 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons bourbon
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the half-and-half, milk, beaten eggs, butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Pour half of the mixture into the baking dish. Add bread and half of the pecans and raisins over the custard mixture.
- Slowly and as evenly as possible, pour the rest of the custard mixture over the bread and top with the remaining nuts and raisins. Let the pudding sit and soak for 30 minutes so the bread can fully absorb the milk.
- Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until lightly browned. Serve with bourbon sauce and whipped cream.
- To make the bourbon sauce, add butter and brown sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat and mix until the sugar is dissolved. Add the bourbon, buttermilk, corn syrup, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. Boil mixture until heated through, about a minute. Stir vanilla into the mixture. Drizzle sauce over the bread pudding. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped heavy cream.
- Stacy Lyn’s Note: When blueberries are in season, they are a wonderful substitute for the raisins. Also, toasting the pecans in a 350°F oven for about 5 minutes, or until the lightly brown, will bring out the pecan’s flavor and will keep them crunchier.
- The bourbon sauce is fantastic on chicken, shrimp, and meatballs, too.
Bread pudding is old-time flavor and brings back memories of love shared around the table.
Love it. So good!!
It’s a wonderful sauce!! I’m so glad it provoked good memories.
Can this be frozen and if so at what temp do you reheat it.
Do you add the sauce before being frozen?
Hi Lydia, I would not add the sauce if you are going to freeze it. When you remove it from the freezer, you can either bring it to room temp and then heat it in a 200 degree F. oven or you can place it directly in a 200 degree F. oven until it is warmed through.