The saga of the lost bread pudding

Commander's gives you bread pudding and a hat on your birthday!

A few years ago, we splurged and went to Commander's Palace for Mr. G.'s birthday. They sat us in the garden room (which I always call the jungle room) overlooking ancient oak trees and they fed us bread pudding.

That bread pudding sparked a memory and created confusion all at once.

Granny Hebert (my mom's mom) used to make bread pudding. I can remember her kitchen down to the brown side-by-side refrigerator, the zillion cans of soup in the pantry (she grew up in the Depression) and the salt and pepper shaker collection. But I cannot remember how she made that bread pudding.

I don't think the woman ever wrote down a recipe in her life. And I don't remember any cookbooks among the romance books she favored. So she probably kept the recipe in her head.

Granny Hebert made the best bread pudding. 

Since Granny's death, I've looked at bread pudding recipes in puzzlement. None of them sparked even a vague memory. They just didn't seem right.

Then I tasted Commander's bread pudding, and a bell rang.

Commander's recipe is widely available on the internet. It's a complicated dish involving tons of eggs. I can't imagine Granny would've used a dozen eggs in a single recipe. She was a widow living on a very fixed income, and she didn't raise chickens.

So I asked the family for help.

My mother correctly pointed out that my Nanny (Granny's oldest daughter) would know the recipe. Sadly, Nanny is no longer with us.

My aunt said she didn't know the recipe.

They're a lot of help.

Finally, my cousin - who was Nanny's youngest daughter - offered the most helpful tips. She remembered some of the ingredients and that it had a meringue.

That's what was different about Granny's bread pudding. A lot of times, the bread pudding you get in a restaurant is a gooey dish of bread, fruit and milk. Granny's bread pudding - like Commander's - had a meringue on top. And it never had raisins.

I found this recipe on the internet, and it feels right. This is the poor Cajun's bread pudding (no offense to Commander's). No French bread. Certainly, no dozen eggs.

Give it a whirl:

Ingredients

• 4 slices of white bread
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 3 1/2 cup milk
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 stick butter
• raisins, optional

Directions

Break bread into an oven-safe dish. Soften the bread with small amounts of milk.

Beat the sugar and egg yolks together in a separate bowl. Add the remaining milk and stir well.

Then add vanilla and salt and pour the milk mixture over the bread. Add the raisins. Cut the stick of butter into chunks and mix in.

Place the dish in a pan of water inside of the oven and bake at 300 degrees for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean.

For a meringue topping, add 2 level tablespoons of sugar a pinch of cream of tartar to each egg white and beat. Spread on top and bake at 350 degrees until the meringue is golden brown. Serve warm.