Bread Pudding
53 recipes found
Cheese Danish Bread Pudding
A whimsical hybrid of two beloved breakfast pastries – the flaky, sweet cheese Danish and buttery croissants, this recipe is the perfect, elegant but also warming centerpiece for any brunch or dessert table. Butter croissants are chopped and soaked in a flavorful brown-sugar custard and topped with a lemon cream-cheese filling, then baked in a loaf pan for easy slicing, and finished with a drizzle of icing. To freeze ahead of time, slice the loaf and place in a freezer-safe bag, separating each slice with wax or parchment paper, and tuck into the freezer. When ready to serve, reheat in the microwave.
Cheese Puff
Cheese puff is a scene-stealing side dish in which gooey grilled cheese meets cloudlike soufflé, defining itself as the ultimate comfort food. White bread, salted butter and cheese get bound together by a simple egg-and-milk mixture that coalesces these humble ingredients into a savory bread pudding. Stale bread works best for this recipe, as it absorbs the milk mixture better, but if you’re using fresh sandwich bread, simply dry it out in a low oven for about 10 minutes until stale to the touch (but not browned). Don’t be alarmed if your cheese puff deflates when you take it from the oven, as it’s normal and makes for a more custardy bite. While sharp Cheddar is a key component, any mix of firm, well-melting cheese, such as Gruyère, Gouda or provolone, will work nicely.
Croissant Bread Pudding
This bread pudding is a cozy dessert that makes smart use of store-bought croissants. Opting for croissants instead of French bread lends an extra buttery and rich base for this dessert. Though bread pudding is traditionally made with leftover, stale bread, which absorbs more liquid than fresh, feel free to use fresh croissants – the soak time should compensate for the fact that they have a little more moisture. The optional rum sauce adds a caramel-like finish to the dessert but a scoop of ice cream would also pair well.
Shahi Toast
White bread transforms into a luxurious dessert in this classic South Asian sweet. Think of shahi toast as the ultimate bread pudding — cold, creamy, dreamy, crunchy and fragrant with cardamom, which tastes citrusy, sweet and floral. Buttered, toasted squares of bread are soaked in a citrusy-sweet cardamom cream until soft (but not soggy!) and topped with crunchy pistachios. This was one of my mom’s favorite desserts as a kid growing up in India and this is her shortcut version, with my upgrades (hint: butter). It is amazing how luxurious this tastes considering how easy it is to make.
Coconut Bread Pudding
Laurent Torondel, the chef of BLT Steak and BLT Fish, developed this recipe for tropical bread pudding. It's rich and luxurious, but quite easy to assemble. Thin challah slices are layered on top of one another then drenched with a boozy mix of eggs, sugar, cream and coconut milk. It's baked in a bain-marie, then slid under the broiler for a few minutes to achieve a crackly-brown top.
Simple Bread Pudding
This recipe is proof-positive that leftover bread can easily be converted to dessert without much work. There’s room for customization here: Consider adding fresh or dried fruit or a combination of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cardamom. Bread pudding makes a great brunch dish, served with fresh fruit compote. Or add a handful of chocolate chips before baking for a decidedly more decadent outcome. Discover more ideas for the big day in our best Thanksgiving recipes collection.
Apple Bread Pudding With Calvados Sauce
Honeyed Challah and Apple Pudding
Holiday Bread Pudding
Onion Bread Pudding With Corn
Mushroom Bread Pudding
Wonderful served as a brunch centerpiece or as a holiday side, this rich meatless casserole can be assembled in advance, refrigerated overnight, then baked just before serving. You could certainly prepare it day-of and let the bread soak for 15 minutes before baking, but allowing it to sit overnight will make it more tender. Delicate brioche is the ideal bread for this pudding, and it is available in most supermarkets, often in the form of hamburger rolls, which are a good size and shape for this dish. Challah is also a good option, but it’s a bit denser, so it may take more than 15 minutes for it to soak up the custard.
Mushroom and Gruyère Bread Pudding
Bread pudding is my go-to alternative to traditional stuffing, which tends to dry out your turkey. To make bread pudding, you need to dice the bread, season it and bake it until the cubes are nicely toasted. Here, I start with Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned cubed stuffing mix — be sure to buy the cubed mix! — and then add lots of fresh ingredients. Delicious bread pudding in half the time!
Capirotada (Mexican Bread Pudding)
Capirotada is a seasonal dish eaten for Lent or Cuaresma, a time of the year when many Mexican households whip up meatless meals on Fridays. This cinnamon-scented bread pudding is a balance of textures, and sweet and slightly savory flavors. Its array of garnishes vary, and families debate which ingredients should make the cut and which should be forgotten. In Zacatecas, Mexico, onion is an unexpected ingredient that ties together the piloncillo and cheese. This dish can be made traditional or plant-based by selecting dairy-based or vegan butter and cheese. The key ingredient is a stale or lightly toasted baguette, birote or bolillo, which absorbs sweet piloncillo syrup melded with melted cheese, and holds up your chosen ingredients.
Green Strata With Goat Cheese and Herbs
This herb-infused savory bread pudding makes an excellent brunch dish or a light dinner. It gets its hue from a copious amount of braising greens pureed into the custard — baby kale, mustard greens, chard. Use all of one or a combination. The bread cubes can soak for up to 24 hours before baking, so plan on assembling this in advance. But don’t bake it until just before serving. You want the eggs on top to still have their bright yellow, runny yolks. If you’re not a goat cheese fan, substitute dollops of fresh ricotta instead.
Banana-Walnut Bread Pudding
This unapologetically rich special-occasion dessert is adapted from one served at the Blue Ribbon Bakery and Cafe, a working bakery in Greenwich Village known for its eclectic American cuisine. It counts four cups of heavy cream and 11 egg yolks among its list of ingredients, but we promise you won't regret the indulgence. In his 2003 article accompanying the recipe, Jonathan Reynolds said, “The banana-walnut bread pudding with banana caramel sauce puts most bread puddings out of the game, and I've had roughly 10,000 bread puddings.” Did we mention that's it's a cinch to put together? It is, and it's perfect for a crowd. (Here are some ideas for what to make with all of those leftover egg whites.)
Ham-and-Cheese Brioche Pudding
Bread pudding, an old-fashioned frugal dessert, usually contains day-old bread, milk, eggs and a bit of fruit, fresh or dried, baked in a sweet custard. This savory version, made with ham and cheese, employs tender buttery brioche. It is easier to make than a quiche, but has a similar delicacy, perfect for lunch or a light supper.
Honey-Apple Bread Pudding
Soft and cakelike challah makes for a deluxe bread pudding. This one is shot through with cubes of apples caramelized in honey, then topped with sliced almonds for crunch. You can assemble the pudding up to two days ahead of time and store it, covered, in the refrigerator. Then pop it into the oven an hour or two before you want to serve it, adding a few minutes onto the baking time. It’s best served warm, when the apples are at their most jamlike. But leftovers served cold from the fridge make a terrific breakfast.
Panettone Bread Pudding
If you’ve bought a loaf of truly fantastic panettone, made in the Italian tradition from a natural starter, the kind that’s airy and melting, we hope you don’t have any leftovers. But if you find yourself with an excess of mass-produced panettone, or simply very old panettone that’s past its prime, here’s how to transform it into something special. Cut it into thick slices, as the pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt does with brioche, when she makes her bread pudding at Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Toast them. Now layer the bread in a wide dish, and pour over a whisked custard of milk and eggs. It will look like too much liquid, but as it bakes, the panettone will soak it all up, becoming moist and tender and impossibly rich. It’s close enough to a casserole of French toast to make it ideal for a special holiday breakfast, but sweet enough to step in as dessert on a cold night. Vanilla would be a classic way to flavor the custard, but panettone tends to be quite sweet and perfumed already, so taste the bread first before adding extras.
Whiskey-Orange Bread Pudding
A bottle of workmanlike Scotch or other whiskey can be as useful in the kitchen as it is on the bar, contributing alcohol and flavor to a range of recipes. A splash of it can sharpen a pan sauce for steak or pork, it’s excellent flambé material, and it’s especially compatible with dried fruit. I have soaked dried currants in whiskey to add to a simple chocolate cake. For this recipe, which takes its cue from the Blood and Sand cocktail made with orange juice and Scotch, I used the spirit to bolster a warm bread pudding laced with orange, both grated zest and candied peel, and finished with a marmalade and whiskey glaze. Supermarkets and fancy food shops, as well as online sources, sell candied orange peel. But absent that ingredient you can substitute slivered dried Turkish apricots.
Savory Bread Pudding With Artichokes, Cheddar and Scallions
Tangy marinated artichokes star in this cheesy, golden-topped casserole, which is layered with scallions, Cheddar and baguette cubes that get crisp at the edges. Look for the best-quality marinated artichoke hearts, then taste them before using. If they seem very acidic, give them a rinse and pat them dry before proceeding.
Bananas Foster Bread Pudding
Here is a nod both to the original bananas Foster at Brennan’s restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans and to the luxe version of bananas baba au rhum that the Louisiana chef Allison Vines-Rushing once cooked at Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar in the East Village. Silky and rich, deep with the flavors of bananas, rum and custard, it is not much work to make, and pays off in incredible flavor. Do not be afraid to use an even darker sugar than the brown called for in the recipe, though molasses may be a step too far. You are looking for a deep caramel hue and flavor in the sauce, to complement the rum and the fruit. (And if you're looking to try the original, make our bananas foster recipe.)
Chocolate-Pumpkin Bread Pudding
This warm pumpkin bread pudding from Chloe Coscarelli, the vegan chef and cookbook author, is generously-spiced and studded with semisweet chocolate chips. It’s a rich and creamy dessert that’s free of dairy and eggs but will leave everyone feeling as if they have indulged.
Challah Bread Pudding
This bread pudding is a dream of a dish to use up leftover challah, babka, brioche or a mix of day-old breads. (You can even add dry cake!) Bake this as soon as it’s assembled — useful for last-minute brunch — or dip each piece of the bread in the vanilla cream sauce ahead of time, then prop the pieces vertically in an attractive baking dish and refrigerate, so all you have to do the next day is pop the pudding in the oven before bringing it to the table. Not too sweet, the bittersweet chocolate and poppy seeds add a nice touch and taste without overwhelming the vanilla and cinnamon. Your guests will gobble this dish up.
Tres Leches Bread Pudding
Pastel de tres leches, a traditional Latin American dessert, consists of a basic sponge cake doused in three types of milk: condensed, evaporated and whole milk or cream. Inspired by the classic cake, this bread pudding transforms those three milks into a rich custard that gets absorbed by buttery cubes of brioche. As it bakes in a water bath, it becomes golden and toasty on the top and soft and pillowy on the bottom. Serve it at any temperature with a dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of condensed milk. If you have any leftovers, eat them for breakfast topped with a little Greek yogurt and some fresh fruit.