When Nancy Charvat of Abingdon served bread pudding at a recent dinner party, her guests -- most of whom remember Howdy Doody and the Cold War -- immediately were drawn back in time.
"My grandmother used to make this," a guest said enthusiastically before proceeding to polish off the warm, soothing dessert topped with a luscious whiskey sauce.
The retro dessert -- which actually has been around a lot longer than a few generations -- is making a giant comeback these days. By all appearances, the popularity of bread pudding is surpassing even tiramisu's reign of the early '90s and cheesecake's dominance in the '80s.
Most restaurants are offering a version of this new darling of desserts. And major food magazines are featuring intriguing bread-pudding recipes almost every month.
The appeal is simple, chefs and cooking experts say.
"It's warm, feel-good comfort food," says Doreen Ercolano, owner of Gemelli Desserts in Towson. "We can't keep it in. There's something so inviting about its simplicity."
Sheri Worthington, who owns the Harryman House restaurant in Reisterstown with her husband, John, echoes Ercolano's response.
"It's huge. It's comfort food," says Worthington, whose delectable bread pudding features apples and dried cherries. "That is one dessert I could make all the time."
No wonder. Most recipes call for easy basics: bread, eggs, milk and spices.
Then creativity takes over, with cooks adding fruits, liquor-laced sauces, white and dark chocolate and fancier-than-white breads, such as croissants, muffins or pound cake.
"Cinnamon raisin [bread] is a good choice," says Gemelli pastry chef Chelsea McGurrin, who adds apples or pears to dress up her bread pudding.
Pam Luckey of the Polo Grill also uses a basic recipe, jazzed up with chocolate chips, apples, bananas and even brownie chunks. The possibilities are endless, she says, suggesting that cooks can substitute almond extract, Grand Marnier or lemon for the traditional vanilla flavoring.
"The trend is toward home-style desserts with a flair," she says.
Luckey predicts that dessert lovers will find a resurgence of such old-fashioned desserts as cobblers imbibed with liquored fruits and rice puddings enhanced with exotic basmati rice, jasmine and lavender.
"People are pairing neat things with old desserts," she says.
But, actually, bread pudding had previous glory days, says New York cooking teacher Stephen Schmidt, who is writing a book on the history of desserts.
