Bread Pudding With Bourbon Sauce

You can’t get a much more classic dessert than Bread Pudding.

In fact, history records indicate that this southern dish has been served since the 12th century.

This recipe came out necessity.

It was a fantastic way to eliminate the waste of stale bread. Add in a little milk, eggs, sugar and spices, and a delicious dessert was born.

Classic Bread pudding is an easy to make dessert that takes little effort.

Chunks of stale bread are soaked in milk and then a sweet egg mixture is poured over top. That is it!

It is then baked in the oven until golden brown. And in modern history, a sweet glaze is poured over top to make it even more appealing.

Bread Pudding With Bourbon

Bread pudding can be made with a variety of ingredients. You can keep it classic by using the milk and egg mixture.

Or you can jazz it up by adding dried fruit, nuts, or mix in a variety of spices.

And by all means, if you don’t have a French loaf, you can use just about any bread to make bread pudding.

I have even seen bread pudding made with leftover muffins, cake, and corn bread.

But this recipe takes a little spin on the classic bread pudding recipe.

Not only are we adding raisins, we are also adding Bourbon.

Bourbon Soaked Raisins

First of all, we soak our raisins in bourbon before adding them to the mixture. This adds a ton of flavor to the bread pudding.

Instead of having chewy raisins in the middle of the dessert, you end up with soft, easy to eat raisins that are delicious!

If you don’t like whiskey, don’t worry! I am not a fan of whiskey drinks at all!

However, the whiskey in this recipe, well, to be quite frank, doesn’t taste like whiskey at all.

Depending on the type of whiskey that you choose to use in this recipe, your bread pudding will take on different flavors.

For instance, I used Jim Bean Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey in this recipe. In doing so, the bread pudding took on stronger flavors of vanilla.

However, if you use a different type of whiskey, you may find that you have other flavors incorporated as well.

The option to use the bourbon whiskey is totally up to you. If you prefer, you can soak your raisins in apple juice, water, or leave them as packaged.

Bourbon Sauce

Bread pudding began to take on a new image in the early 18th century when it was served as a dessert in the finest establishments.

That is when the addition of a glaze or dipping sauce first appeared.

Sticking with the whiskey theme, this recipe includes the instructions to make a delicious and smooth tasting bourbon sauce to serve alongside the bread pudding.

I actually prefer to pour a little on top and serve the remainder as a dipping sauce.

But just like the raisins, the making of the bourbon sauce is totally optional. In fact, in the recipe below, it includes a non-alcohol sauce to use a substitution.

And for those who are wondering what is the difference between whiskey and bourbon, the answer is simple.

Whiskey can be made from a variety of grains, typically a variety of wheat, rye, barley and corn.

However, Bourbon is made from 51% corn and must be made in the United States.

So as the saying goes, all bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.

Whether you choose to make your bread pudding with or without whiskey, you are sure to enjoy the Southern comfort of this Bread Pudding recipe!

Enjoy!

Mary and Jim

Jim and Mary Competti have been writing gardening, DIY and recipe articles and books for over 15 years from their 46 acre Ohio farm. The two are frequent speakers on all things gardening and love to travel in their spare time.

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