A HARTE APPETITE: BREAD PUDDING GIVES COMFORT

A reader, Renauta Gately McNabb, has made the following request: "I have often eaten at the Holiday Inn here in Cape. They have the best bread pudding I have ever eaten. Would you please see if you could get their recipe? I would love to have it."

I don't blame Renauta for wanting the recipe, for who can resist bread pudding, perhaps the ultimate comfort food? And the version served at the Holiday Inn is excellent.

Bread pudding, in fact, is appearing more frequently on restaurant menus all over the country, even restaurants which are decidedly upscale. For example, it's a permanent fixture on the menu at Spago, Wolfgang Puck's fashionable West Hollywood place, and there are not one but two recipes for it in the official Spago dessert cookbook. Not bad for a dish that started out as a way to use day-old bread and other leftovers.

Historical records make mention of bread pudding pans used by William Penn's wife, so the dish goes back at least as far as Colonial times. Recipes for it can be found in the classic cookbook, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, written by Hannah Glasse and published in 1796, as well as in other cookbooks of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Bread pudding has come a long way since then. Contemporary recipes are far more sophisticated than their plebeian ancestors. For example, I have recipes for white chocolate macadamia nut bread pudding, pear and cranberry bread pudding, and Kahlua bread pudding, just to name a few. But it's hard to beat the old fashioned kind served at the Holiday Inn.

Holiday Inn Bread Pudding

The inn makes this dessert in large vats, so this recipe has been scaled down for the home kitchen. Bake in a 2-quart casserole dish or a 9 x 13-inch baking pan.

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon nutmeg

3 cups scalded milk

1/2 stick butter

5 slices white bread

1/4 cup raisins (optional)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Beat eggs. Add 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg. Beat together until smooth. Add milk. Melt butter in baking dish. Toast bread and cut each slice into 3 strips. Place strips in dish with butter. Add custard mixture and raisins. Mix remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon together and sprinkle on top. Bake 25 minutes at 325 degrees. Serve with favorite vanilla sauce.

Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

Basic bread pudding, made simply with stale bread, eggs, milk, sugar, and maybe some raisins, will never go out of fashion, but if you're in the mood to dress up the basic recipe a bit, consider this version devised by Linda Hegeman and Barbara Hayford for their cookbook, New Fangled, Old Fashioned Bread Puddings, a work devoted entirely to recipes for bread pudding. Resembling a huge chocolate chip cookie, this dessert is, therefore, two comfort foods in one.

Ingredients:

4 cups day-old French bread, crusts removed, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

2 cups half and half

4 tablespoons butter cut into small pieces

2 large eggs

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 cup semisweet or milk chocolate chips

Directions:

Butter a 1 1/2 quart souffle or baking dish. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In small saucepan bring half and half almost to boil. Remove from heat, add butter and stir until melted. In large bowl, beat together eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt, and cardamom on medium speed. Gradually add half and half mixture, beating until incorporated. Skim and discard foam. Add bread cubes and chocolate chips and toss to combine. Pour into prepared dish and bake 45 minutes until set, pudding is puffed, and top is browned. (Knife inserted 1 inch from center should come out clean.) Cool for ten minutes before serving. Serves 6.

Pumpkin Raisin-Bread Pudding

This bread pudding from Good Housekeeping magazine could give pumpkin pie a run for its money on Thanksgiving Day. At 7 grams per serving, it's already low in fat but if you want to reduce the fat content even more, substitute evaporated skim milk (or that wonderful Land O Lakes fat free half and half) for the milk and use Egg Beaters. I've found that because the pumpkin acts as something of a fat replacer, you hardly notice the difference.

Ingredients:

1 loaf (16 ounce) raisin bread with cinnamon

5 cups milk

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 can (16 ounce) solid-pack pumpkin

3 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 large eggs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut each bread slice into 4 pieces. In very large bowl whisk together all ingredients except bread. Add bread, coating well, and let soak for 15 minutes. Spoon mixture into greased 13 x 9 baking dish. Set dish in large roasting pan, fill roasting pan with boiling water to halfway up side of baking dish, and bake for 1 1/4 hours or until knife inserted in center of pudding comes out clean. Serve warm or cold. Serves 14.

Got a recipe you'd like to share with our readers? Are you looking for a recipe for something in particular? Send your recipes and requests to The Harte Appetite, c/o Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699.

~Tom Harte is a professor at Southeast Missouri State University and writes a food column every other week for the Southeast Missourian.