History of Bread Pudding
Born from humble beginnings, bread pudding made its first appearance sometime in the 11th century. Originating in the UK, specifically in England, bread pudding became the cure for preventing any wasted food like stale bread. However, instead of milk, homemakers would use water in addition to whatever sweet spices they could afford to get their hands on.
Different Ways to Make Bread Pudding
Like a lot of traditional dishes, this recipe came about as a way to use up leftover, day-old bread, and because there are bread lovers and eaters all over the world, different iterations of bread pudding have appeared in countries like:
- The United States (especially Louisiana) 🇺🇸
- Ireland 🇮🇪
- England 🏴
- Belgium 🇧🇪
- China 🇨🇳
- Argentina 🇦🇷
- Brazil 🇧🇷
- Malaysia, and more! 🇲🇾
These regional variations lean on different approaches to making the tale-as-old as time dish based on the ingredients sitting around in their pantry or the dishes leftover in their kitchen. See them below:
- Bread pudding using Hawaiian rolls - Portuguese-style sweetened breads and biscuits always make the heart grow fonder.
- Bread pudding using a rice cooker - for an easy, time-saving method to making bread pudding.
- Bread pudding using condensed milk - ideal for using up a long-shelf life ingredient staple.
- Bread pudding using panettone - recycle your classic Italian Christmas dessert with this sweet dough.
- Bread pudding using pillsbury cinnamon rolls - turn an American sweet breakfast staple into a spiced vanilla pull-apart pudding.
- Bread pudding using pound cake - bring new life to a leftover dessert originating from northern Europe.
Scroll to the bottom of the page for an all-around classic bread pudding recipe that’s perfect for virtually any occasion.
Common Bread Types for Bread & Butter Pudding
No matter what type of leftover bread you’ve got in your kitchen, you can find ways to salvage it and turn it into a sweet masterpiece. You can use anything from:
- Plain white bread - breakfast toast bread (sliced or unsliced works wonders), English muffins and naan bread
- Raisin bread - Irish soda bread and cinnamon (raisin) rolls
- Butter heavy breads - sweet brioche buns, braided challah bread, homemade butter rolls, and stale croissants