My husband and I recently had the opportunity to go to New Orleans to watch LSU win the National Championship (Geaux Tigers!), and if you’ve ever been down there, you know how incredible the food is in the French Quarter. We ate at one particular place that I had never been before, and the food there was SO amazing that I bought a cookbook on my way out.

The restaurant is The Court of Two Sisters on Royal Street, and the building is just as beautiful as the food. It was the governor’s mansion in the 1700’s, so it has a regal and elegant look to it, while the canopy made of wisteria over the patio dining section gives it a casual and relaxing look also. It was one of those places that you weren’t in a hurry to leave, even when you were finished eating.

I tried several things there, including crawfish pasta salad, prime rib over grits, and a pineapple mimosa, but my favorite thing was their bread pudding. It wasn’t flashy, and it didn’t have any special sauce on top, but it was the best I’ve ever tasted. I knew this bread pudding was the first thing I was going to make from my new cookbook when I got back home.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 24-inch loaf of day-old French bread
• 3 cups milk
• 2/3 cup golden raisins (I substituted pecans for the raisins, and the pecans made this even better!)
• 1/4 cup salted butter, melted (Real butter, not margarine)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt

I know, it feels like you gained two pounds just by reading the ingredients, but we have to indulge every now and then! “Everything in moderation,” and it only takes a small serving of this to fill you up.

The first step is to “scald” the milk in a large pot, meaning heat it just until it’s about to boil. Remove it from the heat and let it cool a couple of minutes, then add the melted butter and begin to tear the bread into 1-inch pieces and add it as well. The bread will begin to sort of dissolve in the hot milk, making it easier to blend than if the milk was cold. Add in the raisins (or pecans!) next and stir well.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, then stir in the vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and salt. Add to the bread mixture, then spread evenly into a 13×9 greased baking dish.

You can see that my mixture looks “chunky,” and the bread pudding at the restaurant did not. Theirs had a smooth texture, so I’m thinking they either used a potato masher or an electric mixer to blend their ingredients. However, it tasted exactly the same as theirs after cooking, so I didn’t mind the “chunks!”

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until top begins to brown and form a “rough crust.”

Most people make a vanilla sauce or a whiskey sauce to put on top of bread pudding, but this recipe is plenty moist without a sauce. My family does like to put some vanilla ice cream on top though!

I hope you enjoy this New Orleans dessert as much as my family and I did. Even though we can’t just travel to New Orleans whenever we want, we can at least bring some flavors of the French Quarter into our home with recipes like this. The Court of Two Sisters Cookbook is also available on amazon.com, and it has many more great recipes!

Thanks y’all!

– Nikki