My first attempt at bread pudding impressed me a lot and this creamy, rich and sinful delight stole our heart immediately at the very first bite!
It’s been long that I shared any dessert recipe here which made me worried; not only due to lack of variety in my blog but also because I started wondering if we are eventually losing our sweet tooth! Thankfully not! Only reason of not trying my hand on any sweet dish at home is nothing but the wide spread of Indian sweets available all over which my husband freaks on and some variety of sweets is always at home to devour.
The store-bought traditional Indian sweets are so mind-blowing that I never think of making them at home plus their preparation sounds quite intimidating too. So I decided to make something equally mind-blowing but not too easily available at the corner sweet shop. Yeah, as you have already seen it, it is this gorgeous bread pudding with kiss of raisins!
Making bread pudding can sound intimidating too as mastering the art of making a perfect custard requires some practice. But from my experience, I would suggest that you first try making custard with this pudding and not the custard alone; because the custard can go wrong initially but when you use it for pudding, it sets more easily.
Even if it doesn’t set adequately, you can refrigerate the pudding for some time and let all the flavors marry together. It will taste even better a day later. At least I liked it that way. The breads soak up all the custards so beautifully with time that with every spoon of this deliciousness you will thank yourself for making it at home! Trust me, homemade food has different level of goodness which store-bought foods can never match up!
You may be wondering why my bread pudding is brown or you may have already guessed it right that I have used brown bread. It was nothing intentional honestly. I was only having this packet of brown bread at hand which was about to expire in couple of days and I was sure we won’t be able to finish them off as it is. We are not that high on breads but still keep it handy some times for some quick fixes at the time of rush.
I looked up for the bread pudding recipe but most of the recipes are made with white breads which may look a tad bit better; but trust me on this, there is no sacrifice on taste in my version and I cannot stress on this more. Also the good part is with brown bread you would be cutting down some of the fats which may sound a bit funny as yeah we are talking about pudding here – which means heavy cream, sugar, eggs etc etc! No matter what you decide on the breads – white or brown – but please make this at home and fall in love again and again!
- Bread – about 15 slices to produce about 8 to 10 cups of 1 inch bread cubes (You can use any bread, white or brown. I used brown bread. Also stale bread won’t make any difference)
- Raisins – ½ cup or more as desired
- Eggs – 4
- Granulated white sugar – 1 cup (200 gms)
- Vanilla extract – 2 tsp
- Ground cinnamon – ½ tsp + extra for dusting
- Unsalted butter – 60 gms, melted and cooled
- Milk – 2 cups
- Double cream – 2 cups
- Preheat your oven to 150 C / 300 F and place a rack in center of the oven.
- Lightly grease a heatproof baking dish with butter. Place the baking dish into a larger roasting pan that has enough room around its sides to fill with water.
- Place the bread cubes in the baking dish. The size of the baking dish depends on the amount of bread you are using; you should have heaped bread cubes on your baking dish which you may find difficult to fit in but that is needed as once the bread cubes get soaked in custard, they will reduce down significantly.
- Combine the milk and cream and mix well.
- To make the custard, beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl using a hand mixer or balloon whisk until thick. This would take about 4-5 minutes if using an electric mixer and more with balloon whisk.
- Add the vanilla extract and ground cinnamon and whisk them in. Then beat in the melted and cooled butter. And finally add the milk and cream mixture. Whisk everything well.
- Now it’s time to assemble the pudding. Carefully pour the prepared custard over the bread cubes until completely covered. Press down the bread cubes so they remain inside the custard.
- Spread the raisins all over the baking dish so that every nook and corner is covered.
- Prepare a water bath (A water bath is used to provide temperature protection for the egg custard. Source: Joy of Baking). Carefully pour in enough hot water so that the water is halfway up the sides of the baking dish.
- Bake for about 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Another way to judge whether the pudding is fully baked, is to gently press down on the center of the pudding. If any custard comes up to the top, the pudding needs to be baked a little longer.)
- Remove the bread pudding from the water bath and cool slightly before serving.
- Serve warm or cold with a dollop of softly whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
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