OK guys, I’m going to apologize before I even start this week because what I’m about to tell you could ruin your resolve to lose weight for your summer attire. Be forewarned.

This one is a dessert that has been a favorite pretty much all my life. I know you’ve heard that before but this time I really mean it.

I’ll give you a hint: it’s chocolate, and it’s served warm, with hard sauce melting over it. For any of you kids who’ve never heard of hard sauce, it’s simply confectioner sugar and butter, with a little milk thrown in, like buttercream frosting.

The dessert is chocolate bread pudding. I know. Again, I apologize.

Back when I was skinny and didn’t really appreciate it, I made this whenever I got a craving for a chocolate dessert: often. I’d eat the whole thing myself over a two or three-day period, and never gain an ounce.

After a certain age it doesn’t work that way anymore. I really hate that. It’s not fair.

I’m pretty sure this recipe was handed down from my great-grandmother, Nana. She raised my mother and her aunt together. My mother made this a lot when I was a kid, and her aunt, my great aunt Barbara, made it a lot for her kids too. Oddly, their recipes differ. My great aunt’s might be the true original and my mother may have altered it to make things a little simpler.

Of course I like my mother’s better. You know that whole song and dance.

My great aunt’s recipe was shared with me by my first cousin once removed, Richard, Barbara’s son. I could tell you more about him but some things are best kept to myself. You can read about him in my book of memoirs. It hasn’t been written yet, but it will be.

My great aunt Barbara was cool. She flew with Amelia Earhart once, and got her own pilot’s license when she was in her 60s. She took my first husband flying once and I’m pretty sure he developed a crush on her. He was 22. She was 65. Gives us hope.

Anyway. The bread pudding itself doesn’t call for a lot of sugar so it’s not overly sweet. Hard sauce, on the other hand, is like 100 percent sweetness, so it makes up for the lack of sweetness in the pudding.

Ugh. I’m getting hungry. And I’ll need photos. I need Baker’s unsweetened chocolate, but I have cocoa powder. I’ve never substituted that, but there’s a first time for everything. And I like living on the edge. (Anyone who know me knows that’s a bald-faced lie, but it sounds good.)

OK here’s my mother’s recipe:

1 cup breadcrumbs, 2 cups milk, 2 eggs, 6 tblsp. sugar, 1 square unsweetened chocolate (I did substitute cocoa – 3 tblsp. and 1 tblsp. oil — couldn’t tell the difference), ¼ tsp. nutmeg, ¼ tsp. cinnamon, ½ tsp. Vanilla, pinch o’ salt.

Heat the milk in a saucepan, with the chocolate, till chocolate is melted. Stir in breadcrumbs. Let cool. Mix sugar and beaten eggs. Combine all. Add flavorings. Bake in oiled dish set in pan of hot water at 350 for around 40 minutes. Pudding should be firm.

Serve it warm. You want the hard sauce to get all melty. If it’s cool stick it in the microwave for a minute. Do not eat it unless it’s warm. I’m not going to say that again.

My great aunt’s recipe is essentially the same, but differs in that it calls for stale cubes of bread — not the fine-grained ready-made stuff I use — and more chocolate. In Richard’s re-write of the recipe he says you have to melt the butter and chocolate “gently.” And mix “gently” with the breadcrumbs. He knows I hate that. And unfortunately I don’t have room to include it, so if you’d like to try that one, email him at: richard@boxermarine.com. I know he’d love to hear from you, and he’s single, smart, and good-looking.

I also received a variation of a chocolate bread pudding recipe from Suzanne Norton. HER mother’s recipe, it’s called chocolate chip pudding. It calls for chocolate chips instead of unsweetened chocolate, and there’s some shredded wheat thrown in to up the health level. I’m sorry I don’t have room for that one either, but if you’d like it, message her on Facebook.

So anyway, I had a rather large bowl of chocolate bread pudding with an unseemly big glob of hard sauce melting on top last night. I could easily have had seconds. You can’t even imagine.

This morning I found a nice shirt in my closet that I hadn’t seen in two years. The last time I wore it, it draped nicely, with room to spare. I tried it on. There was no draping. In fact I may have torn a seam. It would’ve been perfect for Erika Meiler and Ryan Leighton’s wedding in September.

At least I have a great skirt for it. I got it at Marden’s. Don’t judge me. The original price was $385. Marden’s price? $37. It’s a beautiful foggy gray taffeta thing. With an elastic waist :-).

The last time I made chocolate bread pudding Ryan and Erika were at my house for dinner, along with Nicole Lyons and Ben Bulkeley. (They’re getting married too.) Sue Mello and her husband Jon Lewis were there too. They’ve been married for a long time. I haven’t been married for a long time.

I was looking forward to some of the dessert for breakfast the next morning, but those people ate it all. That was in December. I’d been craving it ever since. So I made some last night, then walked 8,652 steps, then ate the large bowlful.

I had a manhattan while I was making it. Cooking is more fun with a manhattan. I really mean that. You don’t really have to have a manhattan if you don’t want one, or even a glass of wine, but it should be fun. If it’s not, go out to eat or order a pizza.

If you decide to make the bread pudding, keep in mind that it’s wicked fattening, and entirely devoid of anything resembling healthy. So try not to eat too much of it in one sitting. Good luck with that.

And don’t say I didn’t warn you. See ya next week.

I’m not a chef. I lay no claim to being an authority on food or cooking. I’m a good cook, and a lover of good food. And I know how to spell and put a sentence together. This column is simply meant to be fun, and hopefully inspiring. So to anyone reading this whose hackles are raised because you know more about the subject of food than I, relax. I believe you.