Bread Pudding

Prep: 15 Minutes | Cook: 30 Minutes | Resting Time: 1-4 Hours | Total: 1 Hour 45 Minutes - 4 Hours 45 Minutes

Makes 8 Servings

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Ingredients

• 6 Slices of stale bread, cubed (Croissants, Challah, and Brioche work really well)

• 3 T of Butter (unsalted) 

• 4 Eggs

• 1 C Milk

• 1 C Half and Half 

• ¾ C Brown Sugar

• 1 t Vanilla Extract

• 1 t Ground Cinnamon

• 1/2 t Ground Nutmeg

• 1/2 t Salt

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Recipe Summary

1. Chop bread into small pieces

2. Create egg mixture (egg, milk, half and half, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt)

3. Melt butter and layer over bread. Add egg mixture and allow bread to sit for 1-4 hours

4. Bake at 350F until golden brown

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Recipe 

1. Roughly chop the bread into medium sized pieces (1/2” squares) 

2. Melt butter and set aside in a separate bowl. Mix eggs, milk, half and half and sugar until sugar is fully dissolved and the mixture is uniform. 

3. Add vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and mix thoroughly.

4. In a 8x8 baking tray place bread in a single layer. Pour melted butter over the bread and toss to evenly distribute the butter. Pour the mixture over the bread and mix around to ensure the majority of the bread is partially submerged. For best results allow the bread to soak in the mixture for at least 1 hour, up to 4 hours (covered and in the refrigerator).

5. Before cooking the bread pudding, remove from the refrigerator and preheat oven to 350F. Cook bread pudding for 25 minutes or until brown edges form. 

6. Serve hot. 

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Why the Recipe Works

Bread pudding is an extremely simple dish that can make use of stale bread and turn it into a delicious dessert. At it’s simplest form bread pudding is chopped up bread soaked in a sweetened milk and egg mixture flavored with warming spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.

While delicious on its own, it can be complimented and improved with a a warm sauce such as caramel or chocolate. Caramel sauce works well as it adds a little bit of nuttiness from the caramelized sugar. The caramelized sugar will add sweetness but because it’s a different kind of sweetness from the soaking mixture, it will provide additional contrast to the palette. Cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla also add depth to the dessert.

Soaking bread helps rehydrate it and give it a pillowy texture. Using stale bread is ideal because it doesn’t get as soggy when it soaks up the custard. For best results soak for at least a couple of hours or overnight. Brioche is the most common bread used in bread pudding, however many different kinds of breads can be used to achieve delicious results. For example I’ve used old croissants in a bread pudding, which resulted in a bread pudding with a crispy and flaky top layer.

The beauty of bread pudding is the perfect textural contrast between the crispy top and the pillowy middle layer. As the bread pudding bakes, the bread exposed from the egg mixture will toast and get crispy while the soaked bread will cook and get warm but won’t crisp due to the added moisture.