Baking Bread Pudding

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Recently, I had a bad batch of sourdough bread. I didn’t stretch the dough enough and overworked it during shaping. The resulting loaf didn’t proof well and baked up dense.

I decided to cut up the bread into cubes and dried out the bread. Then I stored it in the freezer, intending to use it for this recipe.

Notes

Bread

I used a botched batch of sourdough. It didn’t work well for me because it’s not not very absorbent. Typically, challah bread is recommended for bread pudding. I want to see if tougher breads like baguettes and sourdough would work, if given a lot of time to soak. Softer breads, like sandwich bread, is too soft and would probably become mush.

Baking

This is baked custard, which means it’s important to hit the right temp. We don’t want to overcook it because it’ll turn into shitty steamed scrambled eggs.

I recommend lower temp baking, to allow for even baking. I noticed that the edges cook up a lot faster than the middle. This is dependent on your baking dish shape. I think I might even try baking at 300F and finishing the pudding with a broil.

Ratios

This is a typical custard ratio: 1 cup, 2 eggs , 1/4 cup of sugar.

The sugar is not needed for sweetness but for slowing the rate of denaturation of egg proteins. So add more sweetness if you want, less if you don’t. I use less because I intend to eat it with maple syrup.

Bread Pudding:

Recipes

  • 300 g bread
  • 30 g butter, melted
  • 4 large eggs
  • 500 ml milk
  • 100 g sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • Pinch of salt

Technique

  1. Grease pan and dump bread in.
  2. Mix everything else.
  3. Soak bread for 30 minutes, to overnight. If the bread floats, squish it to help it soak up the custard.
  4. Bake at 160C/325F for 30-40 minutes. Check for internal temp of 75C/165F.