Creole Bread Pudding With Irish Whiskey Sauce

I got this recipe from a magazine that Mr. Watkins showed me at work. He said I should give it a try someday since I'm such a baker. Well, that sounded like a challenge to me. So I made it for the First Annual Turducken Day Dinner. It is eggier than most bread puddings I've had, but I think that makes for a nice change. It's dense but good. I had some and just picked around the raisins. A good reason to use dark ones instead of golden ones. One of the group at dinner said it was almost like french toast in a dessert form. I would absolutely make this again.

Creole Bread Pudding with Irish Whiskey Sauce

For the bread pudding

3/4 lb. French bread in 1/2" slices (I used a long, thin Italian bread because I couldn't find French bread. I think it worked out just fine.)
1 cup dark raisins
18 large eggs (Yes, for serious.)
4 1/2 cups heavy cream (Yes, for serious.)
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup unsalted butter

1- Arrange the bread in overlapping rows in a 9x13 dish (the deeper the better). Sprinkle with raisins.
2- Beat eggs, cream, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium bowl.
3- Pour half over the bread and press down. (I put a piece of foil down then put another 9x13 pan on top and weighed it down with heavy stuff.) Let it sit for 15 minutes.
4- Pour the remaining egg mixture on the bread. (The recipe calls for pressing it down again, but when I tried that it ended up spilling some of the egg mixture out so I skipped it. If you have a deep pan you may be okay.) Let it sit (pressed or no) for 15 minutes.
5- Combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Sprinkle over the bread. Dot with butter.
6- Bake at 250 for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until just set in the center. (I baked it until when I pushed down in the center no more egg mixture came to the top.)

For the sauce

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
7 large egg yolks
1/4 cup Irish whiskey (I used Jameson's.)

1- In a medium saucepan, bring cream and milk to a boil. While waiting for the mixture to boil, whisk together sugar and egg yolks together in a medium bowl.
2- Whisk in hot milk/cream mixture. (Be careful to temper the eggs a bit before just pouring in the hot milk or else you'll scramble the eggs instead of getting a sauce.)
3- In a double boiler, cook the milk/egg mixture over just simmering water stirring constantly until it thickens slightly, about 12 minutes or so. (It doesn't get ribbon thick. You'll notice the slight thickening by added resistance on the spoon while you stir.)
4- Pour through a fine sieve. (My mixture didn't have any lumps so I skipped this step... perhaps because I tempered the eggs.)
5- Stir in whiskey.

Serve the bread pudding at any temperature you like. I wouldn't go with seriously chilled. Room temperature worked for us. The whiskey sauce should be kept cold and served on the side.