New Orleans Style Bread Pudding

On Saturday, I bought a day old French baguette as part of my dinner. Sunday, I used some of it to make open-faced grilled cheese slices to go with tomato soup (SO GOOD!) But I still had about half a loaf of bread that was getting more and more stale. So I decided to make some bread pudding. I've never had a bread pudding I really loved, but I couldn't think of anything else to make with stale bread of such a small circumference. I looked up a recipe on Food Network, and decided to go with Emeril's New Orleans Style Bread Pudding. I modified/simplified the recipe a bit to make use of what I had. It turned out to be delicious!

New Orleans Style Bread Pudding
3 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup bourbon
1 1/2 cups milk
4 cups stale bread (cubed)
1 cup rasins

1. Beat together eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and bourbon. (I used Jim Beam.) Add milk.
2. Stir in bread and raisins. Let sit for approximately 2 hours in the fridge (stirring once) so that the bread really soaks up the custard.
3. Grease a large loaf pan and preheat oven to 350F. Pour the bread mix into the pan and bake for 55 minutes or until custard is cooked.
4. Let cool 5 minutes in pan.

So what did I change? I swapped milk for half and half and reduced the overall liquid content (eggs and milk) by 25%, but I left the spices and sugar as it was for flavor. The reason being, bread puddings I've had in the past were too soggy. By reducing the amount of custard, the finished product had a much more pleasing texture. I also skipped making the Whiskey Sauce, mainly just because I didn't feel like making it. And I don't really miss it. The pudding is quite good by itself. I had some of it shortly after it came out of the oven, and I also had some re-heated tonight. It was of course better right out of the oven, but it wasn't half bad tonight. I have to say, the bourbon flavor really does make the whole dish more palatable.