New Orleans Bread Pudding

My sister, Eloise Peris, has been making this bread pudding since I was a kid. She spent her young years in Arkansas and moved with the family to New Orleans as an adolescent. She became a great Creole cook. I have many recipes that I will share on this blog that had their origins with her and my mom. I live in Nashville and always ask Sis to make this when I go to visit her. It has a different taste when it is made with the “real New Orleans French bread.”

If you have never had New Orleans French bread there is really no way to describe how light, airy, and crunchy it is. The drawback to this bread is that it is chewable only one day and then it is stale…it turns as hard as concrete. Bread pudding was a way Europeans used their stale bread. The French brought this tradition to New Orleans where it is a staple of restaurants and homes. I love French bread either way, fresh with butter or made into a “Po Boy” sandwich or stale as bread pudding the next day.

Once I made bread pudding for my Dad without raisins. He looked at his pudding and said, “ Where are the raisins? Why have bread pudding if there are no raisins?”
I think he is right. In this recipe the pecans are optional but not the raisins. I have come to prefer white raisins because they are a little tart and have a softer texture.

What is this kitchen tool?

If you grew up in New Orleans you probably own one of these. It is to open Carnation evaporated milk cans.

We used evaporated milk every day, in our coffer, in baking, or in our cereal. Now, even in New Orleans, I don’t think it is as popular as for my generation. When the paycheck was lean we thinned it with water to make it stretch farther. It gives this recipe a richness and taste that just using whole milk or half and half does not provide.

Ingredients

8 cups of light French bread—better if not the heavy Italian type bread
1 and ¼ cup sugar
2 of the 5 oz. cans Carnations evaporated milk or one 8 oz. can
2 cups milk--whole or 2% (For a really rich pudding) using part half and half
1 tsp. vanilla
3 medium eggs or 4 small eggs
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup white or dark raisins
½ nuts optional

Directions

Spray the glass pan with Pam or coat with butter. Break up the bread into the pan and pour over the milk. Let stand about 20 minutes. Mash with you fingers.

Be sure the raisins are spread through out the pudding.Mix up all the other ingredients and pour over bread and milk. Mix well with a spoon. Use a 13 x 9 x 2 inch glass pan and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or longer. Cook till lightly brown on top and puffy with no damp looking areas. It will fall like a soufflé as it cools. It is fluffy and wonderful when hot and still tasty when cold but has a completely different texture. Store in the refrigerator. Lewis likes it with ice cream but I like it plain.

Above, my sister Eloise on one of my visits; we love to go to the antique shops in Covington, Louisiana.

Other bread pudding recipe from New Orleans

French Quarter Website History of Bread Pudding in New Orleans
http://frenchquarter.com/dining/BreadPudding.php