Bread Pudding

Before I give you the wonderful recipe I have to give you a little background. I never liked bread pudding until about 14 years ago when a wonderful Italian lady I worked with brought some to work. It was the same bread pudding her husband made and sold at his little restaurant in a rural Arkansas town about 30 miles away. After I left that work place I never had the bread pudding again but have tried it many times in different restaurants. Recently a different local Italian lady had her own cookbook published. I am proud to say I have two signed copies. In this book she was allowed to print the original bread pudding recipe.

2 sticks margarine, melted
2 1/2 cups sugar
8 eggs
4 cups milk
1 or 2 T vanilla
Hamburger buns

Mix first 5 ingredients together, adding melted margarine slowly and after it has cooled a little.

Line large pan with approximatley 14-16 large hamburger buns (tops and bottoms) in layers. On top of each layer put the custard listed above and sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture to your liking. We were able to get 3-4 layers in a pan depending on the size pan we used. Pat down each layer until moist.

Bake 350 for 1 1/2 hours.

Sauce:

Beat 2 eggs until foamy. Add 1/2 sugar, 1 cup margarine, melted and 1 teaspoon of burbon or flavoring of choice. Spoon over individual servings when served.

Here are a couple of our tips we learned from making this two times this weekend.... The recipe is fine when divided in half. When we divided it in half we used about 7 buns (top and bottom) and had about 3-4 layers. The pan we used was an oval casserole dish slightly smaller than a 9x13 pan. We cooked it about 35-45 minutes. When removed from the oven it should not be dry or it will be overcooked. We did NOT cut the sauce recipe in half, I remembered how great it was and knew we would manage to use it all. We did. I did not have any bourbon so I used 1 1/2 T vanilla instead.

Even Dana loved it and she is our toughest critic! As Abby says so often........ Enjoy!