Bourbon Panettone Bread Pudding with Warm Pouring Vanilla Bean Custard

Every Christmas i buy more panettone then we can eat, especially since around where i live, i only find this stuff during Christmas season. So i buy a few extras and freeze them for a later use.
Looking for ideas of what to do with the panettone, i ran accross some comments from a blogger friend Katrin from "Running with the Devill(ed) eggs" where she mentioned a panettone bread pudding. I wanted something really good, so added bourbon to the egg mixture and the thought of a warm pouring custard came to mind! It was perfect indeed!

Ingredients:
1 panettone, torn into chuncks ( or you can use regular crusty bread)
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), melted
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons bourbon (i used maker's mark)

Pouring Custard:
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, sliced
4 large egg yolks

Preheat oven to 350F
Butter a 9x13 baking dish or 12 ramekins. Place torn panettone pieces in the prepared dish.
Whisk together eggs, butter, sugar, milk, vanilla and bourbon.
Pour egg mixture over panettone. Cover with foil and let it soak for 5-10 minutes.
Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 10 minutes. Remove from oven to rest. If using ramekins, bake for 20 minutes covered and 5 uncovered.

While baking the pudding make the pouring custard.
Split vanilla beans in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
In a small saucepan mix together milk, cream, sugar and vanilla bean seeds. Heat until just before boiling point. Reduce the heat to low. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until frothy. Add a little of the hot milk to the eggs and beat again. Pour the egg mixture into the saucepan and beat again. Cook over very low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until it thickens a bit. I cooked for about 10 minutes for a pouring custard, if you like it thicker, just cook longer. You can reheat in the microwave if made ahead.