Pumpkin Spice Bread Pudding with Toffee Pecan Sauce

I saw this bag of Pumpkin Brioche at Trader Joes and bought it without a second thought. This is huge because I have a very strict NO BREAD rule in my house as I can and will eat buttered toast for every single meal and my waistline does not need that. Anyways- so I bought this bread and after deliberating in my head for ~10 minutes I decided: BREAD PUDDING. So here, you go. Bread pudding. Feel free to use just a regular loaf of brioche bread if you do not have a Trader Joes, it just won’t have the same pumpkin punch as this.

what you need:

• 1 loaf Trader Joes Pumpkin Brioche
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 cup pureed pumpkin, feel free to leave this out if you just want regular bread pudding!

Toffee Pecan Sauce:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon liquor, rumchata, amaretto, or bourbon your choice, I used “Chila ‘Orchata Cinnamon Cream Rum”
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

what you need to do:

• Grease a 9×13 casserole dish and set aside.
• Grab your loaf of bread, put the butts aside (I toasted mine and ate with butter because I am out of control) and dice each piece into smallish cubes. Place in the casserole dish and leave out an hour so, let it get a little crispy and stale.
• In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, both sugars, milk, cream, spices, and pumpkin. Whisk this very vigorously. If you do not whisk the eggs enough, they won’t soak into the bread and will settle into the bottom of the pan and bake like scrambled eggs. Which is gross. Whisk like your life depends on it.
• Pour the liquid over the bread cubes, making sure to let it soak up before pouring more. Make sure to also get the sides and corners. Pour all of the mixture over the bread.
• Using a spatula, very gently push the bread down into the pan to make sure each piece is completely soaked up in the liquid.
• Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for 30 minutes.
• While this sits, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
• After the rest period, put the bread pudding into the oven and bake for 45 – 55 minutes, stopping to rotate the pan every 10 minutes or so. If it starts to get dark on top, cover with a piece of foil.

• You want the top to be a bit browned and the middle to be firm. If after 45 minutes its still super jiggly, check on it every 5 minutes until it cooked.
• Remove from oven and let cool for 15 – 20 minutes.
• Prepare your sauce while it cools!
  • In a small sauce pan on low heat, melt butter, and then add brown sugar.
  • Mix and simmer for about 2 minutes, and then add heavy cream and your liquor.
  • Mix and then let simmer for about 5 minutes to thicken up.
  • Add pecans and stir, then spoon over bread pudding.
• Note on the sauce: only spoon over each individual plated serving, not the ENTIRE pan of bread pudding as it will get soggy.