Bread Pudding
“Oh gosh, it’s great, the best I’ve ever tasted. Why? You don’t have one in the oven right now, do you? I could always stop by on my way home.” --Gary Willis--
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By Gail Rissi Thomas ’ve often found it interesting and sometimes surprising that when writing stories about a community like West Frankfort, so many of the people, the families, and even the buildings and the events are intertwined with one another. Sometimes I feel that if we looked back carefully enough through all nine issues of Good Living in West Frankfort we could connect every story, creating a single chain out of everything we’ve written. I had that feeling last week in talking to M.C. Odle at his home up on Odle Street. He referred several times to the house next door at the corner of Odle and Main where the Dunn family had lived when he was growing up. There were eight children in the Dunn Family and Odle and two of the youngest, Leonard Dunn, the attorney, and Emmet Dunn, the dentist, were great friends as kids, playing together and probably as my Uncle Leonard Dunn used to tell me, getting in lots of mischief together too. My mother told me many stories about my great grandparents, James and Martha Dunn, and good times spent in their home in the heights. Many of them, like many of the other stories in our family, revolved around food. According to my mom, my great grandma Dunn was known as a cook who would serve enormous meals with favorite dishes for every person in the
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family. “That dining room table would almost groan under the weight of all that food,” my mom would say. When all the courses had been served and consumed, and the elaborate desserts polished off, I guess you could find the men in the family with belts unbuckled, holding their stomachs and wishing they shown a little more moderation. That is when Great Grandma Dunn would come trotting out of the kitchen with a tray with still another course. “Plum Puddin’ anyone?” she would sing out in a chipper voice, enjoying the moans and groans of her grown children before they reached for -- just a taste. Well, this has been the long way around the barn just to say that I don’t know much about plum puddin’, but I do know a thing or two about bread puddin’and those who used to claim it as their favorite during our bakery years, will probably be pleased to see what is going to follow. Are you reading this Joann Bennett? I learned to make bread pudding from Nadine Robey, who used to be the head cook at Wit and Wisdom for many years in the seventies and eighties. I worked for Volunteer Services (now Crosswalk) at the time and had a desk in the Wit and Wisdom building. I never strayed far for lunch on bread pudding days, and later, when Nadine came to work for me in our catering business, I learned the details of making this very rich and simple dessert.
Spring • 2009
Recipe for Nadine’s Bread Pudding (I have scaled this down to a 9 x 13 pan. It should make about 8 to 12 servings.) Toast about 8 slices of regular sliced white bread in the oven until dry and golden brown on both sides. Break up slices in any way in small to average chunks and place in the pan (I spray my pan, but you probably wouldn’t need to.) There should be enough bread to overlap or provide more then just one layer. Melt one stick of butter (I use butter) and drizzle over the bread. Beat together: about 8 or 9 eggs, one and a half cups of sugar, and 2 cups of milk and pour mixture over bread pieces. Add pecan pieces and/or raisins as you prefer Bake: 350 for about 45 minutes or until liquid has turned to custard and top is puffy and golden brown. This pudding is not soft; it is more like French toast. Sauce: Melt: One stick of butter with about a cup of light brown sugar. Cook over low heat, stirring until it blends together and bubbles. Drizzle over bread pudding and serve warm. ( If you prefer, you can use vanilla instant pudding thinned down with an extra cup of milk for sauce.)