Bread Pudding & Coconut Pound Cake

By Susan M. Thigpen © 1987-2012

Issue: January, 1987

Dear Editor and Staff,
I get The Mountain Laurel every month. I enjoy reading about mountain life. I enjoy your recipe page. Would someone that lives in mountains please put a Bread Pudding recipe in it? I want old fashion bread pudding made with cold biscuits, milk, eggs and sugar. I haven't seen a recipe since I was a child (57 years old). I'll be looking for it.
Sincerely,
A regular reader

Dear Readers,
The bread pudding my mother made when I was a child was made from stale loaf bread. I called my mother and together we formulated the following recipe. Mother never used a recipe, just put ingredients together without measuring them, as most country cooks do. I hope this recipe is close to the bread pudding you remember. There are a lot of variations to the recipe. You can flavor it with cinnamon or vanilla; add raisins or canned peaches. The amount of sugar also varied as to taste and, I guess, how much could be spared.

BREAD PUDDING

3 eggs beaten
3 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla if desired.

Mix above ingredients and fold in 4 cups cold biscuits broken into bite size lumps. Let sit overnight in refrigerator or until bread has soaked up the milk-egg mixture.

Spoon into a 1 1/2 quart buttered casserole dish and dot top generously with butter. Fruit or raisens may be folded into mixture at this stage. Bake 25 minutes at 350 degree oven. Serve hot from oven. It's great topped with cream, whipped cream or ice cream.

For marble bread pudding, swirl cocoa through the mixture before baking. That's what Betty Inman of Cascade Mountain Inn said her mother did and it was delicious.

(Editor's Note... One Saturday morning there was a box in the mail. When we opened it, we discovered cake, and a letter and recipe in the box with it. It was from W. Raymond Conner of Roanoke, Virginia, who said, "All my life I've heard the 'proof is in the pudding', so I'm mailing you a sample of my favorite 'pudding' to test it out. I would like for all my relatives and friends in Patrick County to have a chance to try it out. Thanks, W. Raymond Conner, formerly a resident of Woolwine, Virginia".

We really enjoyed the cake, Mr. Connor and appreciate you sharing the recipe with our readers. We're sure that it will be enjoyed not only by people of Patrick County, but readers everywhere.

P.S. Dear Readers,
We're sorry, but we couldn't figure out how to get a slice of Mr. Conner's Coconut Pound Cake in every paper for you to try, but we have included his recipe below. Good eating.

COCONUT POUND CAKE

3/4 lb. butter (do not use margarine)
3 cups sugar
5 eggs

Sift and measure the following:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 cup coconut ( Baker's angel flake)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 teaspoon lemon flavoring

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time, then beat well. Add milk and flavorings, next beat in flour and last add coconut.

Bake in a 325 degree oven 1 1/2 hours in a well greased and floured tube pan. Cool in pan 10 minutes before taking out of pan.

This makes a large cake. Do not use a bundt pan.