Bread Pudding with Vanilla Custard Sauce
Updated March 26, 2019
Bread Pudding with Vanilla Custard Sauce – how to make bread pudding with a delicious bread pudding sauce worthy of any celebration! This easy bread pudding recipe is what dreams are made of.
A Perfected Bread Pudding Recipe
Today is my dad’s birthday and we are celebrating with his favorite dessert – Bread Pudding with Vanilla Custard Sauce. I love celebrating birthdays, especially when dessert is involved:) And we love celebrating my dad because he is the BEST dad on the planet.
My dad came to visit us for Christmas and we made this bread pudding on Christmas Day. We’ve both made bread pudding before, but not together, and we wanted to perfect our recipes. Well, we did it because we both loved this bread pudding and so did everyone else at the dinner table.
My dad keeps asking me for the recipe. I wrote it down in my secret blog notebook, and told him I would share it soon. Well, soon ended up being February, but hey, it makes a great birthday present:)
Tips for How to Make Bread Pudding
So what makes a perfect bread pudding? Here are my top three tips.
- Start with stale French bread. You want to use stale bread so the bread will absorb all of the custard. If you don’t have stale bread, you can toast it in the oven to dry it out. You don’t want a soggy bread pudding, or at least I don’t:)
- Add plenty of cinnamon and raisins. If you don’t like raisins, you can leave them out, but if you know my dad, you know raisins are his favorite food. I think that is why bread pudding is my dad’s favorite dessert. It’s just another excuse to eat raisins:)
- Don’t skip the bread pudding sauce. Make the simple vanilla custard sauce to pour over the bread pudding. You will want to lick it off your plate.
Birthday or Anyday Bread Pudding
Dad – we are sticking a candle in your piece of bread pudding and singing happy birthday! We hope you enjoy your special dessert and special day. We love you!
And if you don’t have a birthday to celebrate, you can still enjoy Bread Pudding with Vanilla Custard Sauce. It is the perfect dessert for winter. You can’t beat a warm piece of bread pudding with the delicious bread pudding sauce. Comfort food at it’s finest!
Bread Pudding with Vanilla Custard Sauce
Ingredients
For the Bread Pudding:
- 1 loaf stale French bread cut into 1-inch squares (about 7 cups)
- 3 cups 2% milk
- 3 large eggs lightly beaten
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 cup raisins
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
For the Vanilla Custard Sauce:
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/8 teaspoon rum extract optional
Instructions
- 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Put the bread and milk in a large bowl and mix until all of the milk is absorbed.
- 2. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and allspice together. Pour the mixture over the bread and stir to combine. Gently stir in the raisins.
- 3. Pour butter into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan. Coat the bottom and the sides of the pan with the butter. Pour in the bread mix and bake for 40 minutes, or until the bread pudding is set and the corners are slightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack while you make the custard sauce.
- 4. To make the vanilla custard sauce, heat the milk and cream in a medium saucepan until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and egg yolks until combined and a light yellow color. Temper the egg yolks by whisking in a few tablespoons of the hot cream mixture, until you've added about half of the cream mixture. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the pan with the remaining cream mixture and stir over medium heat with a wooden spoon until the custard thickens. Remove from the heat and stir in the rum extract, if using.
- 5. Cut the bread pudding into squares and drizzle vanilla custard sauce over each piece.
- Note-the bread pudding is best served warm.
Have you tried this recipe?
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I love bread pudding! I cannot wait to try your recipe, you never disappoint!
I put nutmeg in mine so good
My mom is a big fan of bread pudding! May have to save this for her birthday this year!
I don’t remember any more when I first had bread pudding but it’s a serious favorite now! That custard sauce is the perfect topping.
Happy, happy birthday to your dad!
This is one of our favorite desserts to make while camping. Looks perfect!
I don’t normally go for bread pudding because most of the time it can be really heavy. I’ve certainly never made it. Your recipe’s got me thinking I need to make it! It looks so delicious. That vanilla custard sauce is really getting me in a very good way!
Maria, this looks so, SO amazing!
I want to make this only I will leave out raisins!
Oh this is simply mouthwatering, look so flavorful and tasty.
This bread pudding looks to die for! I wish I had your photography skills!!! I can’t wait to try this recipe. I mentioned you in my proper blogging etiquette post today as one of the great proper bloggers out there. Feel free to share the article if you wish. http://whatsfordinner-momwhatsfordinner.blogspot.com/2013/02/blogging-etiquette-and-how-to-market.html
What a lovely pudding to celebrate your dad’s birthday with. I can understand why he wanted the recipe to this!
I was not into bread pudding until recently. Now I love it! This looks like a perfect warm dessert for this cold weather!
Happy belated birthday to your dad! I thought I wasn’t big on bread pudding until my fellow brought me back some from a local restaurant last week (he loves bread pudding and I now see why). That bread pudding had a lot of lemon in it, but I bet it’s great with raisins and custard sauce, too!
I made this yesterday for a special dinner with a great friend. It was absolutely amazing!!!!
Could any part of this be made ahead of time?
Thanks!
Happy birthday to your dad. Have never tasted bread pudding. Looks good but do no can’t this type bread where I live to make this one. Try to never eat white bread.
I really liked this, and so did my family! However I am new to making custard, and the directions were a bit vague on how long to cook it. I think I cooked mine a bit too long, it set up fairly quickly. How long should it cook for?
Your recipe sounds wonderful but I do have issues with ingredient lists not matching the order of the directions. Just one of those things I’m anal about. Anyhow, you mention rum extract (optional) in the Vanilla Custard, then in the directions you say to add the vanilla and rum extract. Later you say to add the rum extract, if using. So which is it? Should I use 1/8 teaspoon of rum extract with the vanilla extract and add a bit more later if I want? Thank you in advance for your answer.
Sorry for the typo! I updated the recipe. If you are using the rum extract, stir it in at the very end! Enjoy!
Fantastic! Even though I love bread pudding and love to bake, for some reason I had never made it before. So I was looking for a recipe that “sounded” like my idea of bread pudding…and this fit it to a T! I didn’t have 2% milk, but I had a 16 oz carton of heavy cream, so I used 1 cup cream and 2 cups skim; instead of the vanilla custard sauce, I made the other cup of cream into homemade whipped cream. Even my teenage “picky eater” licked his bowl clean! This recipe is definitely a keeper.
I brought this to work to share with coworkers. I didn’t make the sauce for it, but served it with whipped cream. It was a huge success and was asked several times for the recipe. 🙂 I also used dried cranberries instead of the raisins. Thanks so much for the recipe!
Today February 16, 2014 was My Dads Birthday, he would have been 99 today. So in his Memory i am making your Bread Pudding. He taught me how to make bread pudding.. He also love custard. I know he would -Love your version. It sounds so YUMMIE!!? THANKS.
Great site love your website name. Your bread pudding looks scrumptious. I would love it with a tall glass of cold. This even tops it off even better with vanilla ice and a cherry on top. A truly delicious desert. Awesome!!!!!
Made this tonight!! I made it a 3 day adventure and used a loaf of challah bread i made two days ago! it was amazing! my family kept on going back for seconds… and thirds… and sometimes fourths!
Thank you for a great recipe! Each recipe I have tried from you blog has been delicious! (:
How many cups equal 1 1/2 loaves of bread?
can I use half milk and half heavy cream? thankyou
thee bread pudding is great custard sauce me kids love
Well, here it is 8:30p.m. & the bread pudding just came out of the oven/ I followed the recipe to the letter
and it looks & smells delicious. I have to confess I pulled a piece off the top & it soooooooooo good. It looks kike maybe it could make a little longer. I am going to let it cool and in the morning I am going to put t in the oven & heat it up before I take it to work. My husband is on a diet, so I decided to take it to work. There is one thing I did change I almost forgot I used Splenda instead of sugar. So we will see how everyone at work loves it. Thanks to your dad for adding it to your recipes. Happy Belated Birthday to your dad. I had mine a week and turned 65. Retirement here I
come!!!!
Glad you enjoyed the bread pudding!
WOW, this stuff is delicious. I did not use all of the sugar mixture to make it a little healthier and did not make the sauce for the same reason, but even with those changes it was really, really good on a cold winter day. Comfort food 🙂
Should this be refrigerated?
This will be the 1st bread pudding i have ever made! Although i will not be useing raisins im sure it will be tasty
So delicious, thank you for sharing! I increased the recipe by half (so 1 1/2-ed it) and it fed six adults with a little left over. I used a full loaf of homemade bread. I didn’t increase the sugars however and we found it to be plenty sweet enough. I will be making again and adding fun variations, likes apples, blueberries, or chocolate and coconut.
Made and added extras. The raisins plus chopped pecans, after it cools/settles and becomes more dense I can always wave a square to slightly warm. Started to make a vanilla rum sauce and inject throughout the pudding, decided a couple of big scoops of vanilla ice cream would work for me.
Sounds great gonna try it tonight let u no how it is I’m sure yummy
Thanks – Enjoyed this article, how can I make is so that I get an alert email when you write a new post?
Wow…..my first time making bread pudding (what took me so long?!) This was amazing. Everything that I love about bread pudding…..warm, cozy, cinnamony, a little crusty and a little custardy. So good. I reduced the sugar in the custard sauce a bit….make sure it doesn’t thicken too much (keep it saucy….add more milk if needed). I did not use the rum extract, but may try that next time. I used crusty bread, dried a bit in the oven before soaking in milk. I am adding this to the favorites section!! 🙂
This looks so yummy!! I’m wanting to make a gluten free version for my Bunco group next week. How many loaves of gluten free do you think I should use? Thanks so much.
Happy