This was a specialty of Marie Smith Leonard, my friend Sandy’s mother. She had adapted it from an early Joy of Cooking (Bobbs Merrill, 1943), though it disappeared from later editions.

Back when I was working at Windows on the World, general manager Alan Lewis, never know for his diplomatic ways, walked into the pastry shop one day and said, “Why don’t we have a [expletive] bread pudding on the lunch menu?” After a failed attempt by the assistant pastry chef, I bought a copy of James Beard’s American Cookery. Next morning we tried his recipe for bread and butter pudding from the Coach House, which happened to be right across the street from my first apartment in New York City. We cut into one as soon as they came out of the oven and there was a thick layer of custard topped with a thin layer of buttery toasted bread. This excellent bread and butter pudding is loosely adapted from James Beard’s recipe. At the Coach House, this was always served with a raspberry sauce, but I think it’s best plain.

This was a specialty of Marie Smith Leonard, my friend Sandy’s mother. She had adapted it from an early Joy of Cooking (Bobbs Merrill, 1943), though it disappeared from later editions.