Bread Pudding With Drunken Prunes

This is "too good" for kids! If the idea of prunes in a Christmas dessert give you the willies, substitute raisins, figs, dried cranberries or cherries (not all at once, but hey--that might be good!). Works for breakfast, too, for overnight guests during the holidays.

• Ready In: 1 hr 10 mins
• Serves: 10-12
• Yields: 1/2 cup

Ingredients

• 1⁄2 cup  pitted prune, coarsely diced
• 3⁄4 cup  Southern Comfort
• 2  tablespoons butter, melted, divided
• 2  cups  French bread, cubed
• 1  cup milk
• 1  cup  whipping cream
• 2  teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2  whole eggs
• 2  egg yolks
• 1⁄4 cup sugar
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Place diced prunes in a small jar or bowl, pour Comfort ove rtop; let sit about 4 hours or overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 350. Brush 2-quart baking dish with 1 T. melted butter, set aside.
3. In a large bowl, drizzle remaining butter over bread cubes. Scatter cubes on a baking sheet and brown lightly in the preheating oven. Remove and set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine milk, cream and vanilla. Add eggs, yolks, sugar and salt, whisking until smooth; set aside.
5. Dump bread cubes into prepared baking dish. Remove prunes from liquor (or it might all have soaked in) and toss with cubes. Pour egg-mixture over top of cubes and prunes; cover.
6. Place baking dish in a water bath (water should come 3/4 of the way up the sides of the dish), in the oven. Bake for one hour (or until "set").
7. Remove dish from water bath, chill for two hours in refrigerator before unmolding from baking dish (or leave in the pan if you're not doing a fancy presentation).
8. If you prefer to serve the pudding HOT, let it rest only until it is unpuffed--but do NOT unmold to serve.
9. Serve with "butter-rum" sauce (1/2 cup each melted butter and powdered sugar with 3 T rum splashed in--heat briefly in the microwave) OR vanilla ice cream OR whipped cream.