This raisin bread pudding is a perfect solution for your leftover bread and it is the most easiest dessert you've ever made. Soft, flavorful and moist bread pudding accompanied by sweet coffee sauce is all you need for your upcoming holiday dessert.
The first time I came across this amazing raisin bread pudding was way back in 2012. It was when I did a hands-on class for my American culinary regional class.
I was surprised and amazed by how delicious and flavorful the dessert was. All my life up until that point, I always thought pudding was supposed to be always made from egg custard.
Then enter bread pudding. I must say I love this version of baked pudding more than the stirred egg custard one.
It is versatile, delicious, and for God's sake super easy to make. Not like its custards cousins which require proper techniques to accomplish.
What is bread pudding?
Bread pudding is a dessert in which chunks of bread, raisins or other fruit are mixed with an egg custard and then baked. That said, bread pudding is a type of baked custards.
And baked custard is one of the two types of custards. The other one is stirred custards.
Stirred custard is usually cooked on stove top using a sauce pan or a bain marie. A stirred custard is normally used as a dessert sauce.
When making this kind of custard sauce it is extremely important that you do not boil the mixture and stir it continually. Then temper the egg mixture with approximately one-third of the hot liquid.
Homemade creamy custard (A Baking Journey), pastry cream (Lins Food), and raspberry pink custard (Greedy Gourmet) to name a few are family members of stirred custard.
Baked custard is cooked and thickened the coagulation of egg mixture in the oven. There are many types of baked custard desserts around us.
It can include simple mixtures of eggs, sugar, milk and caramel sauce like these simple 3-ingredient flan, gluten-free Brazilian chocolate fudge flan (Easy and Delish) and this crème brûlée (Champagne Taste).
More than that, baked custards also include mixtures in which other ingredients are incorporated such as super rich cream cheese flan, Greek yogurt cheesecake, or un-bake Japanese style tofu cheesecake.
And last but not least, it also includes this amazing raisin bread pudding with coffee sauce.
What kind of bread should I use?
Bread pudding recipes often call for stale or leftover bread. In this recipe, I used 3-day-old honey dinner rolls as a main ingredient. You can find the dinner roll recipe here.
Upon making many bread pudding in my cooking life, I personally recommend you to use dinner rolls or any brioche bread type for this bread pudding.
Due to their high in fat contain (butter and eggs), brioche bring to the table more flavors compared to regular stale baguette or sandwich bread.
What to serve with this raisin bread pudding?
Bread pudding usually is served with stirred custard sauce, ice cream, whipped cream, or alcohol-flavored sauce. The most famous sauce that is come with bread pudding is a bourbon sauce.
With this raisin bread pudding, I made a sweet coffee sauce to serve with. It is unique, delicious, and you probably have a package of instant coffee in your pantry already. There is not need to grab a bottle of liquor just to make a few ounces of sauce.
Raisin Bread Pudding with Sweet Coffee Sauce
Equipment
- non-stick bread loaf pan
Ingredients
For bread pudding
- ½ loaf dinner rolls or brioche bread ~ 1lb, cut or tear into bite sizes OR
- ½ baguette cut or tear into bite sizes
- ½ c dried raisin
- 2 whole egg
- 2 yolks
- ½ c sugar
- ¼ tsp cinnamon powder
- 1.5 c heavy cream
To grease baking pan
- 2 oz unsalted butter melted
Coffee sauce
- 1.5 tsp instant coffee powder
- ½ c heavy cream
- ½ c water
- ½ c sugar
Instructions
- Grease a baking pan with melted butter. Don't use bottle spray oil as it does not contain much flavors.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together, eggs, egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon powder until the mixture become smoothly.
- Add heavy cream and mix well.
- Then add pieces of brioche & raisin, let the mixture sit to soak in the flavor for 2 hours in the mixing bowl. Stir occasionally.
For coffee sauce
- While waiting for the bread to soak in egg mixture. In a sauce pan, combine all coffee sauce ingredients. Cook on medium heat.
- Stir constantly to dissolve the sugar completely. Bring just to a boil then turn off the heat.
- Store the sauce in a well covered container and refrigerate it for up to a week.
For bread pudding
- Pre heat oven to 350F.
- Carefully pour the bread mixture into butter greased baking pan. Try to rearrange raisin underneath the bread. Don't leave them on top because they might get burnt during the baking process.
- Bake until the pudding is set in center about 30-40 minutes.
- Let the bread pudding cool at room temperature for 10-15 minutes before unmolding and slicing.
Serving suggestion
- To serve, cut the pudding into slices and top with coffee sauce. Garnished with mint leaves if desired.
Notes
- Chocolate bread pudding: omit the raisins, add same amount of chocolate chips into the egg mixture.
- Banana bread pudding: omit the raisins, add 1-2 over ripe bananas (cut into slices) into the egg mixture.
- Chocolate fudge sauce: omit the instant coffee powder and replace with the same amount of chocolate chips. Combine heavy cream, sugar, water in a sauce pan. Bring to just a boil. Then pour the cream mixture over the chocolate chips and stir until it completely melted.
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