Our homemade bread pudding recipe is practically foolproof and makes enough to feed a crowd. Made with stale brioche bread and fresh eggs, the baked bread pudding has a wonderful custard texture and is perfect paired with our homemade caramel sauce!
The Best Bread Pudding Recipe
Not all bread pudding recipes are created equal. Too many result in soggy or bland slices, which is a tragedy since it’s so easy to get right! This is a classic recipe with just the right balance of eggy custard and bread for a dessert that is a real treat. Using our recipe as your base, you can then customize and branch into other flavors by adding dried fruit, more spices, or even chocolate!
Table of Contents
- The Best Bread Pudding Recipe
- What is Bread Pudding?
- Easy Bread Pudding ingredients
- How to Make Bread Pudding
- Easy Bread Pudding Recipe tips for success
- What to serve with this Bread Pudding Recipe
- Storing Bread Pudding
- Best Bread Pudding Recipe FAQs
- Freaky Friday Blog Swap
- More Freaky Friday Recipes
- More like this Easy Bread Pudding
- Easy Bread Pudding Recipe
What is Bread Pudding?
Bread pudding is a classic dessert made from leftover or stale bread, combined with ingredients like milk, eggs, sugar, and spices. The bread is soaked in a custard mixture, allowing it to absorb the flavors, and then baked until it forms a soft, pudding-like texture.
Once baked, the pudding develops a golden crust while remaining moist and flavorful on the inside. It’s often served warm and can be enjoyed on its own or paired with sauces like caramel, vanilla custard, or a dollop of whipped cream.
What does bread pudding taste like?
As you can probably tell just by looking at the list of ingredients, this classic bread pudding tastes a lot like French toast, albeit with a softer, more custard-like texture and creamier flavor. You will taste sweet cream and vanilla which gets soaked up with the eggs by the brioche bread.
What I love about this particular bread pudding recipe is that it is the perfect canvas for getting creative. Once you have made the original version, try branching out by adding a sprinkle of cinnamon or the zest of a couple of oranges and some chocolate chips. Or sprinkle fresh or frozen cranberries, blueberries, or other berries or dried fruit in with the cubed brioche bread.
You can even make a chocolate bread pudding by whisking in ¼ cup of cocoa powder with the custard mixture before pouring it over the bread!
Easy Bread Pudding ingredients
Scroll down to the recipe card below this post for ingredient quantities and full instructions.
- Stale bread – A loaf of day-old brioche or challah bread is the best type of bread for making the best bread pudding recipe. It’s important that the bread be stale so it can soak up the custard mixture. Fresh bread doesn’t work as well, although you can cube it, spread it on a baking sheet in a single layer, and bake at a low temperature for 20 to 30 minutes to help dry it out in a pinch.
- Eggs – Use fresh, large eggs for that rich, custardy taste.
- Sugar – Granulated sugar provides just the right amount of sweetness for both the bread pudding and the homemade caramel sauce that we serve with this dessert.
- Half-and-half or heavy cream – This makes the bread pudding richer than if you were to just use milk alone. Erin’s recipe calls for half-and-half, but I almost never have that on hand so I used cream instead with great results.
- Whole milk – I recommend whole milk for the best results.
- Vanilla extract – I always use my homemade vanilla extract for baking.
- Salt – Just enough to balance the other flavors.
- Butter – This gives the caramel sauce a wonderful, buttery flavor.
How to Make Bread Pudding
- Cube your bread. Start by cutting up a loaf of stale bread into roughly 1-inch cubes using a serrated knife. Leave the crusts on and everything as they only add to the texture of the bread pudding once it’s baked.
- Whisk custard ingredients together. Combine eggs, sugar, heavy cream or half-and-half, milk, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl and whisk well to make the custard for the bread pudding.
- Soak. Pour the egg mixture over the bread cubes in a large baking dish that you have sprayed with nonstick cooking spray or rubbed with butter. You might need to push the bread pieces down into the custard a bit at first to make sure they all get wet. Cover with plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge for 1 to 2 hours so the bread can absorb the custard before baking.
- Bake. Once the bread pudding has soaked up the custard, bake it for 50 to 60 minutes until it is puffy and golden brown around the edges. It should be set and no longer jiggly in the center when it is done. Remove from the oven and let cool a bit before serving warm or at room temperature.
- Make the caramel sauce. As soon as the bread pudding goes in the oven I start on the caramel sauce. This version uses a wet method by combining sugar and water in a saucepan and cooking until the sugar has dissolved. Then you increase the heat and boil for 5-8 minutes until the sugar syrup turns a lovely light amber brown color. You don’t want to go much darker than this or the caramel may burn and taste bitter.
- Add remaining caramel ingredients. When the sugar has changed colors to a lovely amber, remove the caramel from the heat and add the half-and-half or cream while stirring. It might bubble or seize at first, but don’t panic and just keep stirring with a wooden spoon. Add the cubed butter, vanilla, and salt, and continue to stir until the caramel sauce comes together. If for some reason the butter remains separate from the caramel, put the saucepan back over the heat for a minute or two until everything bubbles together and combines. This sauce will be thin but it will thicken as it cools.
- Slice and serve. Once the bread pudding has cooled, slice it into squares and serve with the caramel sauce for drizzling on top of the warm bread pudding. You could also just dust it with powdered sugar and serve it with fresh berries and a squeeze of lemon juice too, if you prefer.
Easy Bread Pudding Recipe tips for success
- Use a good quality, stale bread. While you can technically make this old-fashioned bread pudding recipe with almost any kind of bread, we like the results best using something like brioche or challah. But leftover croissants, French bread, or Texas toast are other good options and you can even use this recipe with things like leftover hamburger or hot dog buns or dinner rolls as a way of sprucing up something that has gone stale and avoiding food waste!
What to serve with this Bread Pudding Recipe
Bread pudding is delicious all on its own but it’s extra amazing with fresh fruit or a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side and a delicious dessert sauce drizzled on top. If caramel isn’t your thing, try one of these other delicious dessert sauces with your bread pudding!
Storing Bread Pudding
You can keep any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. It can be served chilled, but I prefer it warmed up in the oven or microwave first. The caramel sauce will also last 1-2 weeks in a jar in the fridge.
You can freeze individual slices of bread pudding for up to 2 months. Just wrap them well in plastic wrap and thaw in the fridge overnight before reheating and enjoying.
Best Bread Pudding Recipe FAQs
Yes! You can actually assemble and let the bread pudding soak overnight before baking the next day if you need to!
If you want to elevate this dish, try baking it in individual ramekins for a more sophisticated presentation. Who doesn’t love an individually portioned dessert?!
My favorite way to tell is just by sight. Bread pudding will be golden brown and set (not jiggling) when it is done. But you can also test it with a sharp knife inserted into the center. It should come out clean when the bread pudding is cooked all the way through.
Freaky Friday Blog Swap
Today is Freaky Friday, which is where a bunch of blogging friends swap blogs to try each other’s recipes. Freaky Friday is organized by Michaela from An Affair From the Heart and it’s always exciting to see who I will be paired up with!
This round I was secretly assigned my friend Erin, who is one of my favorite foodie friends. She has an amazing collection of recipes (I made her Slow Cooker Applesauce Pulled Chicken Sandwiches for a past round of Freaky Friday and they are still a favorite!) and I immediately though of making one of her many pancake recipes like her funfetti pancakes, nutella pancakes, or bacon pancakes.
But as soon as I saw her bread pudding with caramel sauce I changed my plan because I had a loaf of brioche bread that I wanted to use up and I knew Erin would have a solid recipe! We enjoy it as a dessert, but honestly you could get away with eating bread pudding for breakfast or brunch!
More Freaky Friday Recipes
- An Affair from the Heart – Bailey’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
- The Carefree Kitchen – Chicken Tikka Masala
- The Culinary Compass – Scotcharoos Recipe
- Feast + West – Fried Pickles
- The Fresh Cooky – Easy Elderflower French 75 Cocktail with St Germain
- Home Cooked Harvest – Roasted Cabbage Steaks
- Life, Love, and Good Food – Cheddar Bay Biscuits
- Soulfully Made – No Rise Pizza Dough Recipe
- The Speckled Palate – Easy Cheese Ball Recipe
- Take Two Tapas – Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Dip
- The Wimpy Vegetarian – Creamy Spaghetti Squash Casserole
More like this Easy Bread Pudding
- Chocolate Texas Sheet Cake
- Banana Bars with Penuche Frosting
- Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake
- Strawberries and Cream Sheet Cake
- Kentucky Butter Cake
Did you make this recipe?
Let me know what you thought with a comment and rating below. You can also take a picture and tag me on Instagram @houseofnasheats or share it on the Pinterest pin so I can see.
Easy Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Bread Pudding
- 1 loaf brioche bread day old, cut into 1" cubes
- 6 large eggs
- 2 cups heavy cream or half-and-half
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Caramel Sauce
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 4 Tablespoons cold salted butter cut into cubes
- 3/4 cup half-and-half or heavy cream
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Spray a 9×13-inch baking dish with baking spray. Add cubed brioche bread to the dish in an even layer.1 loaf brioche bread
- Whisk together eggs, half-and-half, milk, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Pour over the cubed bread, pressing the bread into the custard to soak.6 large eggs, 2 cups heavy cream, 2 cups whole milk, 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- Cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-2 hours so the bread can soak up the custard.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Remove plastic wrap and bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown and set in the center.
- While the bread pudding is baking, make the caramel sauce by combining 1 cup sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has completely dissolved.1 cup granulated sugar, ¼ cup water
- Increase the heat to medium-high. Bring the sugar mixture to a boil without stirring.
- Boil for 5 to 8 minutes until the sugar turns a light amber color. This can happen quickly so stick close to the stove so the sugar syrup doesn't burn.
- Once the color of the sugar has darkened to a light amber, turn off the heat and stir in the half-and-half. The mixture will bubble up, so be careful. Add butter, vanilla, and salt, stirring until the butter has melted and everything is combined. If it doesn't combine for some reason, return the mixture to the heat and boil for 1 minute.4 Tablespoons cold salted butter, ¾ cup half-and-half, 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- Transfer the caramel to a heat-safe jar to cool and thicken before serving over the bread pudding.
Notes
- Storage: You can keep any leftover bread pudding in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. It can be served chilled, but I prefer it warmed up in the oven or microwave first. The caramel sauce will also last 1-2 weeks in a jar in the fridge.
- Freezing: You can freeze individual slices of bread pudding for up to 2 months. Just wrap them well in plastic wrap and thaw in the fridge overnight before reheating and enjoying.
- Substitutions: You can use challah bread, French bread, croissants, Texas toast, dinner rolls, hamburger buns, hot dog buns, and almost any kind of bread to make bread pudding.
- Variations: The possibilities really are endless, but some of our favorites are to add a sprinkle of cinnamon (about 1 teaspoon) or the zest of a couple of oranges and some chocolate chips. Or sprinkle fresh or frozen cranberries, blueberries, or other berries in with the cubed brioche bread. You can even make a chocolate bread pudding by whisking in ¼ cup of cocoa powder with the custard mixture before pouring it over the bread!
My dad loves bread pudding and his birthday is coming up. I am totally making this for him!! I cannot get over that caramel sauce! YUM!!
Ok, I am over here drooling over these pictures! I am grabbing my bag to run to the store for some brioche to make this recipe asap!
Brioche is so good to start with so the addition of custard and caramel?! Incredible.
This looks irresistible!!!! I adore bread pudding, and now that’s all I can think about!
Simplicity at it’s best! We loved this, easy, straightforward and SO tasty! Thanks for another great recipe Amy!
I love that you made this recipe, Amy! It’s one of our all-time favorite desserts, especially for holidays, and it’s SUCH a treat! I’m glad y’all got to enjoy it, too, and I love your suggestions for sauces, additions to the bread pudding and more.
This recipe is a sure winner! I love all the tips you shared for variations, but the caramel sauce is still my favorite!
I love how creamy this turned out! So rich and when I ate a slice of the leftovers for breakfast, I “justified” it with coffee 🙂
What a gorgeous bread pudding and the caramel sauce is AH-Mazing, melt in your mouth! Putting this on our list of recipes for the weekend! Thanks for another great recipe, Amy!
Made this for my mom (she loves bread pudding). We all loved it! Thanks for a delicious and easy recipe.
This bread pudding turned out so well! Such a special dessert and I’ll be making it again for sure.
My husband said it’s the best bread pudding I’ve ever made!
I’m so glad to hear that!