Brown Sugar Bread Pudding with Amaretto Sauce

Bread Pudding:
4 to 5 cups fresh French bread, cut into 1-inch
    cubes (from an 8- or 10-ounce loaf)
4 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 1/2 cups milk
1 cup golden raisins
8 maraschino cherries

Butter a 9-inch square baking pan. Set oven rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place bread cubes in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and brown sugar until thick and smooth, then blend in cinnamon, vanilla extract, salt, milk and raisins. Pour egg mixture over bread and gently combine. Transfer to buttered baking pan. Set in roasting pan, and place both pans in the oven. Fill the pan with very hot tap water up the sides of the bread pudding. Bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Spoon pudding into wine glasses or goblets. Ladle Amaretto Sauce over pudding and top each serving with a maraschino cherry.

Amaretto Sauce:
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup Amaretto*

* You may substitute bourbon, rum, Grand Marnier or hazelnut liqueur.

Make while pudding bakes in a heavy saucepan, combine sugar and butter over medium heat. Cook and stir constantly to the soft ball stage (235 degrees F to 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer). Add cinnamon, nutmeg and amaretto or spirit of choice. Serve warm over still-warm bread pudding.