re: Bread Pudding and/or Baking Gurus

I can only guess that the evaporated milk is because at one point it was a technological marvel that helped get more milk to more folks before massive upgrades in refrigeration/transportation. So maybe when the recipe was developed Evap Milk was more popular as a baking or general recipe ingredient.

Baking powder might be in there to give it a bit of lift, especially with older style (read here, denser) breads. For instance, I occasionally use a fritatta recipe with baking powder, it does a good job fluffing up the mix.