Instructions: Grease 13-by-9-inch pan well with solid vegetable shortening. Do not use vegetable oil spray.

Combine bread cubes and raisins in large bowl and mound into prepared pan.

Bread should be piled 2 to 3 inches over top of pan. Over medium heat, melt butter in milk. Add sugar and cinnamon and let cool. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour liquid over bread cubes and press well to be sure bread soaks up all the liquid. At this point bread mixture should be level with pan.

Bake in preheated oven 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool slightly, then cut into desired number of pieces or spoon into decorative serving dishes. Add desired amount of warm sauce to each serving. Refrigerate any unused pudding and sauce and reheat to serve.

Makes about 12 to 16
servings.

Note: Use bakery bread or homemade bread that has been dried out one day, and cubed with crusts on. White, whole-wheat or raisin breads work best. Do not substitute. Quantity equals 1 1/2 large loaves.

Butter sauce: Melt butter in heavy saucepan. Add sugar and cornstarch and stir until dissolved. Add half-and-half and bring to boil. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. When mixture is cooled, add vanilla and stir. Serve warm or refrigerate and reheat in microwave oven.

at Kaaren Brehmer, restaurant manager, sent the recipe, which was reduced to a family-size serving.

She wrote: "Bread pudding is a great favorite in our restaurant every day of the year. We also use the butter sauce when we serve cranberry cake in the fall. We use bread from a local bakery and let it dry out before we cube it. We use whatever bread we happen to have i white, whole-wheat and raisin work best."

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