Butterscotch Bread Pudding with Nutmeg Sauce-Improv Challenge

The two ingredients that Kristen from Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker chose for February’s challenge are bread and butter.  Because we are bread pudding fans at our house, and I make it fairly often, since I usually have all the ingredients on hand, it seemed a good choice for this challenge
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I usually make the recipe that is in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, playing around with it from time to time.  I often sub brown sugar for white sugar to give the pudding a more butterscotch-like flavor.  I use different spices and sometimes add dried cherries or cranberries.  (I am not a fan of raisins.)  The original recipe does not include butter.

This time I wanted to try to give the pudding a more caramelized flavor so I decided to butter the bread, spread brown sugar over the butter, cut the bread into cubes, bake the bread until the cubes were crisp and then proceed to make the pudding.

Instead of adding any additional spice to the pudding itself, it seemed that a spiced sauce might be nice to spoon over the pudding.  Although cinnamon would be the natural choice of spice I chose to use nutmeg.  Other spices could also be used.  Being a lover of Chinese 5-Spice, I will be giving it a try at some point.  The sauce can also be spooned over cake, pancakes, waffles or French toast.

I served the pudding at room temperature with the slightly warmed sauce and topped it with a dollop of whipped topping.

Butterscotch Bread Pudding with Nutmeg Sauce
6 slices day-old bread
3 T. very soft butter
1/2 c. brown sugar, divided
4 eggs
1 c. half and half (or use all milk)
1 c. milk
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt

Spread each bread slice with 1/2 tablespoon butter.  Spread 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar firmly over butter to combine them slightly.  With a sharp knife, cut each slice of bread into cubes.  Place cubes, butter/sugar side up in a 10x15-inch baking pan.  Bake at 325 degrees 10 minutes.  Turn bread cubes over and bake an additional 8 to 10 minutes until crisp and just beginning to brown.  Let cool while combining remaining ingredients.  In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs until well blended.  Add remaining brown sugar, half and half, milk, vanilla and salt.  Add cooled bread cubes and let soak about 5 minutes.  Pour into a greased 8x8-inch baking dish.  Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until knife inserted near the center comes out clean.  Remove from oven and let cool.  Serve topped with nutmeg sauce and whipped topping, if desired.  Makes 9 servings.  Store, covered, in the refrigerator.

Nutmeg Sauce
1/2 c. sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1/2 t. nutmeg
1 c. milk
1/4 . butter (1/2 stick)
1 t. vanilla

In a small saucepan combine sugar, cornstarch and nutmeg.  Cut butter into 4 pieces and add along with milk.  Cook over medium/low heat until butter melt and mixture starts to thicken slightly, stirring often.  Add vanilla extract and stir constantly until thick.  Do not boil.  Cool slightly and spoon over bread pudding, cake, pancakes, waffles or French toast.  Store, tightly covered, in refrigerator.  Make about 1 1/4 c.

To see the ingredients to be used in upcoming months and to get information about joining in the fun of the challenge, check out Kristen’s Improv Page.

Check out the links below to see what other bloggers chose to make with bread and butter

An InLinkz Link-up