I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

We don't generally eat a lot of desserts, although you would never guess that given some of the last few month's recipes and the fact that this week it's yet another pudding. (I suppose that, technically, the Lardy Cake isn't really a dessert, but still ...)

In any case, for December 24th dinner, or Christmas Eve as many call it, we had a couple of friends over to share our Federally mandated day of rest. Naturally enough, it featured food. Dinner was roast pork - the last of the wild hog I brought back from Georgia - roasted potatoes, and roasted brussels sprouts. We began with a charcuterie plate of home cured prosciutto-style wild hog, home cured saucisson sec a l'ail, home cured olives, homemade bread topped with homemade fresh dill cheese, and roasted beets (alas not homegrown, from the CSA) topped with homemade feta-style cheese. (I threw a quick picture up, although it's not here since this is about the Bread Pudding. Remember the Bread Pudding?)

After our repast, we wanted something tasty and not too sweet. Bread pudding seemed about right, since I could make it not too sweet and let people adjust it to their taste via a vanilla-rum sauce. And so it came to pass ...

• about 1/2 of a loaf of bread, slightly stale is ideal
• 1/2 to 3/4 pint of heavy cream, more or less
• 2 Tb honey
• 2 Tb vanilla sugar
• a few Tb of raisins, as you like
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 2 eggs

Lightly beat the eggs, add them to bowl and mix well. Now you have a choice: one largish pudding or several smaller ones. I like the presentation of small ones, so that's what I did. Lightly butter your ramekins (or larger baking dish) and preheat the oven to 350F. Fill your ramekins (or dish) but don't overfill! Bake the puddings for about half-an-hour. (If you are making a single large one, it will take a bit longer.) They will set up and turn a nice brown on the edges. Remove and let cool just a bit; they are best when warm.

Five or ten minutes before the puddings are done, make a quick sauce by mixing equal parts vanilla sugar and water in a saucepan and heating until the sugar is dissolved. (Again, if you have no vanilla sugar, use plain and add a bit of vanilla extract.) When the sugar is dissolved and the sauce is nice and warm, add about the same amount of rum to the pan. (Or more, or less. It depends on how much you like the flavor of rum.) If you're cooking over flame, remove the pan from the heat first, or just be careful, since if you've got the temperatures right, it shouldn't spatter, but it should catch on fire. (I'm sorry I couldn't get a better picture of the burning rum; I've only two hands, you know.)

Let the rum cook pretty thoroughly off, then serve it on the side of the (still warm!) bread pudding.

See you in the New Year!