Abby's Bread and Butter Pudding

Ingredients for the pudding:
2 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar, plus 1/2 cup for the topping
8 egg yolks
12 slices tight crumb white bread (recommended: Pepperidge Farm) crusts removed
1 stick butter, room temperature
3/4 cup golden raisins, soaked in 3/4 cup Irish whiskey

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Ingredients for the whiskey tea sauce:
4 tea bags
4 cups boiling water
3/4 cup Irish whiskey (reserved from pudding)
2 T sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
2 cloves
1/2 lemon, juiced

Preparing the pudding:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In a saucepan over low heat, add the cream, the scraped vanilla bean and the seeds (or extract) and 1/2 cup of sugar. Whisk to combine. Bring the cream to a boil. While the cream is coming to a boil, whisk the yolks and 1/2 cup sugar together until they are a homogeneous mixture. When the cream comes to a boil, remove it from the heat and whisk in 1/3 of the egg yolk mixture, tempering until all of the remaining egg mixture is whisked and combined. Reserve this mixture until you are ready to assemble the pudding.

Assemble the pudding:
Butter one side of the slices of bread and cut them into triangles. Butter an 8 by 8-inch square baking dish and put a layer of bread points, overlapping, in the bottom of the dish. Strain the raisins reserving the whiskey. Sprinkle half of the whiskey soaked raisins on top of the bread layer. Pour half of the cream/egg mixture over the bread and raisins. Repeat this process with the bread and raisins and finally finish with bread. Pour the remaining cream/egg mixture into the dish. Press down gently on the whole thing to compress and really compact the pudding. If all of the cream mixture doesn't fit into the pan, wait 10 to 15 minutes and then try again. The bread may need a little while to absorb all the cream.

Set the bread pudding dish inside a 9 by 13-inch baking dish or roasting pan and add hot water until it reaches one-half to two-thirds of the way up the sides of the pudding dish. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake in the preheated oven until the custard has set, about 1 hour.

Remove the pudding from the water bath and let it cool for 10 minutes. Sprinkle the top of the custard with the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a thin even layer. Put the pudding under the broiler or use a blow torch to crystallize the sugar on the top of the pudding. Serve with the whiskey tea sauce.

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Preparing the whiskey tea sauce:
While the pudding is baking, combine all the ingredients and the reserved Irish whiskey in a small saucepan and let steep for 15 minutes. Discard the tea bags and the lemon half. Bring the sauce to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer until the liquid has reduced by half. Taste, the sauce should be very pungent, sweet and spicy (cinnamon and clove, not spicy hot).

Serves 4