It’s amazing how many terrific recipes and foods have roots back to humble beginnings. Perhaps it’s the make the best of what you have attitude or, and in the case of Bread Pudding to make sure stale bread or not, food could not to be wasted.
Bread Pudding History
Bread pudding can be traced back to 11th century England and quickly became known as the “Poor Mans Pudding” with a variation evolving over time as Bread and Butter Pudding which is said to have debuted in an English cookbook “The Complete Housewife” in the 18th century – I’d like to see someone get away with that title today!.
The Compleat Housewife
Nowadays, and not unlike Braised Beef Shanks or Risotto, (see posts) Bread Pudding spans all social classes and can be enjoyed at the finest restaurants, diners and “greasy spoons” around the globe. A far cry from its simple beginnings of stale bread, eggs, butter, sugar and milk there are as many recipes and complex concoctions as there are cooks, causing purists to snub many offerings.
Whether served warm or cold, with bananas or raisins and a multitude of syrups and oh – it must have cinnamon – this dessert is one of our family favorites. Bread pudding is the ultimate comfort food, and the only debate we seem to have is keeping everyone patient – to ensure that the bread is stale enough to create this culinary delight.
I like mine served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and the top must be crispy, but others in our family differ. Here are a couple of time-tested recipes from our Test Kitchen which we easily modify for our vegan daughter. I believe the Bread Pudding Gods will approve!
Banana Raisin Bread Pudding Recipe
This recipe is modified from the Kraft foods website, with a little bit of inspiration and advice from a Martha Stewart recipe.
Lightly grease or spray a 9″ by 13″ baking dish. Cube enough bread to loosely fill the dish. For this dish, if you can – use brioche bread or buns, and raisin bread – but if you don’t have any of those – that’s OK – white bread will do, it’s just not quite as fancy. Slice the bread into 1 to 1 1/2 inch cubes. (I used 6 slices of raisin bread, one large brioche hot dog bun, and half a loaf of sliced french loaf.)
Assorted types of cubed bread
Whisk together:
2 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 box Instant Vanilla Pudding mix
Whisk together milk, vanilla, sugar, eggs and Instant Vanilla Pudding mix
Pour the mixture over the bread – making sure to stir to coat all of the bread pieces.
Sprinkle 1/2 cup raisins over the top
Slice 3 to 4 bananas and spread over the top
Sprinkle raisins and bananas over the top
Bake for 35 minutes in Preheated 350 degree oven
Bake Bread Pudding in 350 degree oven
Serve with whipped Cream or vanilla Ice Cream, sprinkle with a dash of cinnamon or icing sugar if you like! Bread pudding is so easy to make, and I love that I don’t have to make it exactly the same way each time.
Raisin bread pudding with whipped cream
Blueberry Bread Pudding Recipe
As with the Banana Raisin Bread Pudding this recipe is best using what you have on hand!
4-5 cups cubed bread – enough to fill baking dish (stale is good in this case. Brioche, or challah will add some texture, but hot dog buns, white sandwich bread and leftover French bread will do as well)
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries – (berry mix substitutions work as well – sometimes I use a packaged frozen dark cherry, strawberry, blueberry, blackberry mix)
1/4 cup maple syrup or honey or 1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water, milk or orange juice ( the orange juice adds a bit of flavour)
sprinkle of salt
sprinkle of cinammon
1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 tablespoons lemon juice – (I used reconstituted, but fresh is better – if not using orange juice use 3 tablespoons – if using dark cherries, strawberries or raspberries which are more tart, dial it back to 2 tablespoons)
Stir all ingredients together and press into baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees F, for 40 minutes stirring halfway through baking, just to toss ingredients lightly and make sure frozen blueberries are evenly distributed.
(apologies for the quality of this picture – blueberry bread pudding gets made quite often around our house but typically is eaten before I get the camera ready!)
Blueberry Bread Pudding
Let cool but not too long, and serve with something sweet and creamy – perhaps yogurt!
This can be a vegan recipe, if you use bread that is vegan, leave out the milk and use vegan margarine of course. I play with the tartness of this recipe as I find blueberries to be a little bit bland sometimes, so I add extra lemon juice, or use orange juice as the liquid ingredient. If you are using other berries, you may need a little more sweetness!
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Below is a printable recipe card from RecipesGenerator. Please give it a try!
This bread pudding is the ultimate comfort food - with vanilla pudding, raisins and bananas
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 35 MinTotal time: 45 Min
Ingredients
6 to 8 cups cubed slightly stale bread (cut into 1 to 1.5 inch cubes) (brioche or raisin bread is best, but any kind will do)
2 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 box Instant Vanilla Pudding mix
3-4 bananas
1/2 cup raisins
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Lightly grease or spray a 9″ by 13″ baking dish
Cube enough bread to loosely fill the dish.
Whisk together milk, sugar, vanilla, eggs and pudding mix
Pour the mixture over the bread – making sure to stir to coat all of the bread pieces.
Sprinkle raisins over the top
Slice bananas and spread over the top
Bake for 35 minutes in Preheated 350 degree oven
Nutrition Facts
Calories
296.10
Fat (grams)
4.57
Sat. Fat (grams)
1.62
Carbs (grams)
55.44
Fiber (grams)
2.65
Net carbs
52.80
Sugar (grams)
32.78
Protein (grams)
9.67
Sodium (milligrams)
420.54
Cholesterol (grams)
96.81
Nutritional information is calculated automatically using "natural language processing" within the software, and is not guaranteed to be accurate, but is a "good guess"!
This easy blueberry bread pudding is easy to make with frozen or fresh blueberries and leftover bread.
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 40 MinTotal time: 50 Min
Ingredients
4-5 cups cubed bread – enough to fill baking dish (stale is good in this case. Brioche, or challah will add some texture, but hot dog buns, white sandwich bread and leftover French bread will do as well)
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries – (berry mix substitutions work as well - sometimes I use a packaged frozen dark cherry, strawberry, blueberry, blackberry mix)
1/4 cup maple syrup or honey or 1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water, milk or orange juice ( the orange juice adds a bit of flavour)
sprinkle of salt
sprinkle of cinammon
1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 tablespoons lemon juice – (I used reconstituted, but fresh is better - if not using orange juice use 3 tablespoons – if using dark cherries, strawberries or raspberries which are more tart, dial it back to 2 tablespoons)
For vegan and dairy free - use vegan bread, vegan margarine and orange juice!
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Spray or grease one 8 by 8 inch casserole dish with non-stick coating
Stir all ingredients together and press into baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees F, for 40 minutes stirring halfway through baking, just to toss ingredients lightly and make sure frozen blueberries are evenly distributed.
Nutrition Facts
Calories
351.51
Fat (grams)
12.06
Sat. Fat (grams)
6.03
Carbs (grams)
57.63
Fiber (grams)
2.77
Net carbs
54.85
Sugar (grams)
37.44
Protein (grams)
5.36
Sodium (milligrams)
352.42
Cholesterol (grams)
23.59
Nutritional information is calculated automatically using "natural language processing" within the software, and is not guaranteed to be accurate, but is a "good guess"!
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