This is a popular bread pudding recipe well known in New Orleans. The twist of lemon coupled with the Chantilly cream make this anything but your normal bread pudding.
New Orleans Bread Pudding and Lemon Sauce and Chantilly Cream
By: K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen (Chef Paul Prudhomme)
Recipe type: Dessert
Ingredients
Bread Pudding
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ¼ cups sugar
- 1 ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1 ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- 2 cups milk
- ½ cup raisins Lemon Sauce (recipe follows)
- Chantilly Cream (recipe follows)
- ½ cup coarsely chopped pecans, roasted
- 5 cups very stale French or Italian bread cubes
- 1 ½ tsp. Ronald Reginald's Pure Vanilla Extract or 1 tsp. Ronald Reginald's Vanilla Bean Marinade®
Lemon Sauce
- 1 lemon, halved
- ½ cup water
- ¼ cup sugar 2 tsp. cornstarch dissolved in ¼ cup water
- 1 tsp. Ronald Reginald's Pure Vanilla Extract or ½ tsp. Ronald Reginald's Vanilla Bean Marinade®
Instructions
- In a large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs on high speed until they are extremely frothy and the bubbles are the size of pinheads (about 3 minutes, or 6 minutes with a metal whisk). Add the sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, and butter and beat on high until well-blended. Beat in the milk, then stir in the raisins and pecans.
- Place the bread cubes in a greased loaf pan. Pour the egg mixture over the bread cubes and toss until the bread is soaked. Let sit until you see only a narrow bead of liquid around the pan's edges, about 45 minutes, patting the bread down into the liquid occasionally. Place in a 350° oven. Immediately lower the heat to 300° and bake 40 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 425° and bake until pudding is well-browned and puffy, about 25 minutes more.
- To make the sauce, squeeze the juice from the lemon halves into a 1-quart saucepan; add the lemon halves, water and sugar and bring to a boil. Stir in the dissolved cornstarch and vanilla. Cook one minute over high heat, stirring constantly. Strain, squeezing the sauce from the lemon rinds. Makes about ¾ cup.
- To serve, put 1 ½ Tbs. lemon sauce in each dessert dish, then spoon in ½ cup bread pudding and top with ¼ cup Chantilly Cream.
Notes
During preparation of this dish, the milk and egg mixture is too sweet and all the elements are very strong because they're being absorbed by bland bread. After baking, the result is a magnificent pudding.