I love bread pudding. I don't know what exactly I love about this dessert, it's not particularly fancy or complicated, but I love it all the same and I order it whenever I encounter it at restaurants. I hadn't, however, ever made bread pudding before - probably for no other reason that I'm not really a dessert maker (that and the fact that my husband hates bread pudding). So when I found this recipe for Aruban Brad Pudding I knew I had to try it.

The results were in general very good. Both the pudding and the sauce are delicious. However, my technique leaves quite to be desired. The pudding flattened up on me - it rose when I cooked it, but imploded when I removed it from the oven. Not being a baker I have no idea why that was. I also burned the milk when I was making the sauce :(. Fortunately, neither problem affected the taste of the dessert. My guest that night said he actually liked the pudding more than others he'd eaten because it was denser and hater-of-bread-pudding Mike even said it was good. He wouldn't go as far as eating a whole slice, given that it had evil raisins, but he says if I make some with nuts instead of fruit he'd be all over it. I guess I'll try.

The recipe below is for 1 loaf (about 6 portions) of bread pudding. The original recipe was for 2, but I decided to halve it lest I gorge on the left-overs. I didn't halve the sauce recipe, however, and of course I ended up with too much sauce. The recipe below is what I made, half the original pudding recipe and the full sauce recipe. I made few modifications to the pudding recipe. I probably used less honey than it called for, as I run out of honey, but it worked well anyway (I don't like overly sweet desserts). I used dried cramberries, but you can use any small fruit you want. This is the only recipe in the whole meal that I did not get from the Visit Aruba website, instead it comes from Cooking.com

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Aruban Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce

Ingredients

For the Bread Pudding:

5 slices white bread

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp. vegetable oil

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

3 eggs

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1/2 cup raisins soaked in rum for at least 30 minutes

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 tbsp. baking powder

For Rum Sauce:

1 tbsp. cornstarch

1/2 cup sugar

1 3/4 cups milk

1/3 cup rum

4 tbsp. unsalted butter

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Instructions

Make the bread pudding. Cut off crust from bread slices. Tear into small pieces and put in a mixing bowl. Add milk and mash with the back of a fork. Let mixture stand for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350F. Coat a loaf pan with oil.

Add sugar, honey, eggs, vanilla extract, fruits and baking powder to the bread mixture. Mix well and pour on the loaf pan. Put in oven and bake for 50' to 1 hour, until the top is golden brown. Remove and let the pan cool on a wire rack.

Prepare the sauce by mixing the cornstarch and the sugar together in a heavy saucepan. Put on the stove, on medium heat, and gradually add the milk and the rum, stirring constantly. Stir until the mixture almost boils and then reduce heat. Let simmer uncovered for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the butter and vanilla, mix and remove from heat.

Slice up the bread pudding and serve with sauce on top.

See the original recipe.