New Orleans Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce

This is the dessert that closes every proper meal in New Orleans. Bread pudding started as poor folks' food, a way to stretch stale bread into something worth eating. Then somewhere along the way, Louisiana cooks figured out that if you soak that bread in enough cream and eggs and good vanilla, then pour whiskey sauce over the top, you've got something better than any fancy French pastry.

My grandmother Evangeline made bread pudding every Sunday after church. She'd save the week's leftover French bread in a paper sack on top of the icebox, and by Sunday morning she had enough to fill her big ceramic baking dish. The bread has to be stale. Fresh bread turns to mush. You want structure that can absorb all that custard without falling apart.

At Lagniappe, we've served thousands of portions of this dessert, and I've watched grown men close their eyes on the first bite. The secret is the custard ratio: enough eggs to set properly, enough cream to stay silky, and enough sugar to balance the whiskey in that sauce. And that sauce. Lord, that sauce. It's butter and sugar and good bourbon cooked until it coats the back of a spoon. Some folks ask for extra. I don't blame them one bit.