In hot, historical city of New Orleans, there is only one way to eat your bread pudding: with bourbon. Well, a bourbon sauce that is. A traditional bread pudding from the Big Easy is served with sticky sweet, and still alcoholic, bourbon sauce which brings a warm sugariness that will have you coming back for more. Bread pudding with bourbon sauce might even make the perfect non-beignet accompaniment to fellow New Orleans staple, chicory coffee. It’s no wonder as to why bourbon is used in bread pudding: It pairs very well with desserts. Bourbon is aged in charred oak barrels, which gives the liquor a warm, caramel, and almost vanilla-like edge that can help to round out many sweet dishes. This might be why even Alton Brown recommends that you put bourbon in your bread pudding.
However, you can amplify that flavor of bourbon even more. There are many ways of going about this, but perhaps the most ingenious is soaking your dried fruit in bourbon before incorporating it into your pudding. This will infuse your dish with more bourbon flavor and plump up your fruit filling in the process. This is also a great way to incorporate the flavor of the spirit if a high ABV bourbon glaze isn’t for you. It doesn’t mean that you can’t make a bourbon bread pudding — you can simply use the liquor for soaking fruits instead of turning it into a sauce.
Tips and tricks for soaking dried fruit in bourbon
Now let’s talk methods. After all, soaking your fruit in bourbon means more than just letting it sit in the spirit for a few minutes before mixing into your bread pudding. For best results, soak your fruit in bourbon overnight, or at least for a few hours. This will allow for maximum moisture and flavor absorption. After soaking, you should strain your fruit and then mix into your pudding before baking. That said, you can add that bourbon, which the fruit was soaking in, to a glaze if you’d like an extra kick.
You’ll also want to pick the best fruit possible for this recipe. Fruits such as raisins and dried cherries work particularly well here. Cherries soaked in bourbon can give your bread pudding an old fashioned twist, whereas raisins will add a perfectly warm, almost caramel note that melds very well with bourbon. But don’t be afraid to get creative with your fruit choices. Dried pineapple slices, for example, are a great choice for a bread pudding recipe and, if paired with dried cherries, can give it an upside down cake homage. The key to more flavor here is creativity and experimentation. Don’t be afraid to make a few batches. After all, too much bread pudding is no problem at all.
