Chunky Monkey Bananas Foster Bread Pudding with Chocolate Sauce

Author Notes

I've only had bread pudding perhaps 3 or 4 times in my life, and I've never made it before. My first, and probably most authentic, taste of bread pudding was from Durgin Park in Boston. I have fond memories of going to this restaurant as a child, ordering “chicken” and being presented with basically an entire bird. Ordering “steak” got you a t-bone the size of a boogie board. There was sawdust on the floor, the waiters were rude, and it was complete chaos. I loved it. I remember ordering “Indian Pudding” (that’s “Native American Pudding” for all you PC folks) and expecting something along the lines of Jell-o pudding snacks, because in my 8-year old mind that was what pudding was. Imagine my surprise when I got a cornmeal-based molasses bread pudding with ice cream. This was not what Bill Cosby sold on TV, but it was frickin’ amazing.

Figuring that bead pudding is a basic vehicle for any sweet dessert profile, I decided that I love bananas Foster, and that I also love Chunky Monkey ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. Bananas Foster bread pudding had been done (Emeril, my mortal chef enemy, does a version) so I figured that adding the Chunky Monkey (for the uninitiated, this is banana ice cream with chunks of chocolate and walnuts in it) to the bananas Foster would be a great flavor profile. You can be the judge of that, but we have the dark rum, brown sugar and cinnamon of the Foster, along with the chocolate and walnut of the Chunky Monkey. Serve it with ice cream and chocolate sauce and you’ve got yourself a humdinger of a dessert.

Having never made a bread pudding before, I decided to wing it with a peasant boule from Fairway, modify my Grandmother’s custard recipe, throw in all the ingredients that I know to be in bananas Foster and Chunky Monkey, and have at it. —lechef