I recently tried bread pudding for the first time. I had never went out of my way to try it because the name didn’t sound very appealing to me.
BREAD PUDDING IS SO GOOD. It’s so warm, so soft, but also a little crispy and the flavour is so nice. At my ripe age of 22 I have found out that I love bread pudding.
So I felt like I needed to learn how to make it myself, so here we are!
Video Tutorial
Ingredients for the bread pudding
Here are the ingredients you are going to need to make this:
- Bread – I like using brioche, I feel like it works best. It soaks the custard well and it has a nice sweetness to it. But any bread works.
- Milk – make sure to use whole milk.
- Unsalted butter – I used unsalted butter so that I could control the amount of salt in the custard, but salted butter works too. Just make sure to not add any extra salt.
- Granulated sugar – caster sugar works too. Or if you wanted extra flavour, brown sugar will work great.
- Salt – this just enhances the flavours. If you’re using salted butter don’t add this.
- Some spices – I used cinnamon and cardamon for flavour. You could use any spices you want, or you could leave them out if you wanted to.
- Eggs – the eggs are the most important ingredient in the custard.
- Vanilla – for flavour.
Quick breakdown of the process
The process of making this is pretty simple, there’s not many steps.
The first thing you want to do is cut up your bread into cubes and add this into a baking dish. It’s easiest to do this first, just to get it out of the way.
Then make the custard and pour this over the bread.
Leave this to soak for about 20 minutes, then bake it and then that is it.
It’s a super easy dessert to put together!
A few tips
Use stale bread
Using stale bread will give you a much better bread pudding.
Stale bread does a better job at absorbing the custard. Fresh bread can end up turning mushy.
So stale bread is best, it doesn’t have to be extremely old. A day or 2 old is perfect.
Sieve your custard
Before pouring your custard over the bread, I recommend pouring it through a sieve.
Sometimes the spices can leave lumps in the custard, or sometimes the eggs in the custard can end up cooking a little.
So sieving it will get all of this out!
Leave it aside for 20 minutes before baking
This will make a huge difference.
It gives the bread a chance to soak up the custard before baking, which just makes it taste so much better.
What size baking dish should I use?
For this, I used a 9×12 inch baking dish.
Don’t worry too much about the size, you don’t have to use a dish that is exactly 9×12 inches. Just use something that is a similar size.
All we need is something that can hold the bread and custard, the exact size doesn’t matter.
With that being said, a different size dish/tin will have a different baking time. So keep an eye on it!
How to know when the bread pudding is baked?
I baked mine for around 45 minutes. After this time, it was a nice golden brown colour on top.
The best way to check if it is done is by inserting a knife into the centre. If the knife comes out clean, it is ready.
Side note, I wanted to mention. If you wanted a crispier top, the best way to get this is by placing the bread pudding under your grill/broiler for about a minute.
I didn’t do this, I felt like it was crispy enough. But if you want extra crispiness you could.
Don’t walk away from it though, it can burn quickly.
Extra additions
You could leave this plain and it will taste great. But some extra additions are always nice.
Before baking, I added some chopped pecans and milk chocolate chips. You could add whatever your heart desires.
It should be something edible….of course. And something that won’t burn in the over but other than that add whatever you want.
Here are some other recipes I’ve posted recently that I think you might like:
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
400g stale bread, cut into cubes (I used brioche)
- For the custard:
460ml whole milk
50g unsalted butter
80g granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Extras:
50g pecans, chopped (optional)
50g chocolate chips (optional)
Plus some icing sugar to dust on top (also optional)
Directions
- Start by adding your bread pieces into a 9x12 inch baking dish/tin. Leave this aside.
- Making the custard:
- In a pot, add the milk, butter, sugar, salt, cinnamon and cardamom.
- Place this onto medium heat. Heat this just until the butter has melted and the mixture starts to simmer, don't let this come to a boil. Take this off the heat.
- In a large bowl, add the eggs and whisk these just to break the yolk. Now slowly pour in your milk mixture, whiles whisking. Once it has all been added, mix in the vanilla.
- Pour this mixture through a sieve to get out any lumps from the spices or any egg that may have cooked. Now pour this mixture all over your bread.
- Sprinkle your pecans and chocolate chips over this, then leave this aside for 20 minutes so that the bread can soak up the custard.
- Baking the bread pudding:
- Whiles the bread is soaking up the custard, pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f.
- Once the bread has soaked the custard for 20 minutes, bake it for around 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. At this point, if you want the top to be crispier, you can place it under your grill for about a minute. I didn't do this, but you could.
- Once baked, leave to cool down for a few minutes, then dust some icing sugar on top and enjoy!
