Raisin Bread Pudding
A variant of Bread Pudding — An ingredient branch from the authored reference, with its selected additions included in the quantities and method.
Contains gluten, dairy, egg
Restrictions
Containsgluten · dairy · eggIt is in an ingredient you cannot leave out.
Diets
VegetarianPescatarianNo porkNo alcohol · without one
Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.
Ingredients
Servings:
| 260 g | challah or brioche (day-old, cut in 1-inch cubes) |
| 4 unit | eggs |
| 2 cup | whole milk |
| 1 cup | heavy cream |
| ½ cup | light brown sugar |
| ¼ cup | sugar |
| 3 tbsp | butter (melted) |
| 2 tsp | vanilla extract |
| 1 tsp | cinnamon (ground) |
| ¼ tsp | nutmeg (grated) |
| ½ tsp | salt |
| ½ cup | raisins |
Optional
Not counted above. The dish works without them.
| 2 tbsp | rum or bourbon |
| 1 tsp | lemon (zest) |
| 1 tbsp | butter (for the dish) |
| 2 tbsp | powdered sugar (to finish) |
Steps
- weigh3 minscale, not cupsbread cubes to 260 g — cup measures of bread are the least reliable number in this dish, and every dry or soggy bread pudding traces back to guessing here; more bread than this and the custard cannot wet it all, less and there is nothing to hold the custard up
- bake15 min275°F, single layer, dry not colouredbread cubes on a sheet pan, until they feel dry and light and a cube snaps rather than folds — do not skip this unless the bread is genuinely stale, because a moist crumb refuses custard and the liquid simply drains to the bottom of the dish and bakes into a sweet egg layer under a raft of soaked bread
- whisk3 mincold, until no streaks of yolk remaineggs + brown sugar + sugar + salt, then + milk + cream + melted butter + vanilla + cinnamon + nutmeg = custard; whisk the sugar into the eggs first so it dissolves rather than settling, and stop as soon as it is uniform — beating in air makes the pudding puff and then collapse
- fold2 mingentle, in the buttered baking dishTurn the bread cubes through the custard in the buttered baking dish until every cube is coated; press floating pieces down. Distribute all the listed raisins between the cubes, below the surface where they will not scorch.
- rest30 minroom temperature, uncoveredthe assembled dish, until the cubes have swelled and a pressed cube stays compressed instead of springing back — this is absorption, and it is the whole point of the drying step; if the bread was very dense or barely dried, give it an hour or refrigerate overnight, and if you warmed the dairy to a simmer and tempered it into the eggs instead, two minutes is enough
- bake45 min350°F, uncovered, dish on a sheet panthe pudding, until the edges are puffed, browned and set while the centre still wobbles as one piece when the dish is nudged, about 160-170°F at the middle — pull it here; baking until the centre is firm means the eggs have already gone past coagulation into curdling, which reads as rubbery pudding weeping liquid
- rest15 minin the dish, on a rackthe pudding, while carryover heat finishes the centre and the custard firms enough to cut — served straight from the oven it will slump on the plate, and served cold it loses the loose set that separates pudding from cake