Stale bread pudding with butter rum sauce
Don't throw it out. Bread pudding from day-old bread soaked at least 4 hours in custard, with a butter rum sauce poured over warm.
Why it works: Crusty, somewhat stale bread is best for bread pudding: dry cubes drink in the custard during a long soak instead of turning to mush.
Ingredients
- 12–16 oz (340–454 g) sturdy day-old bread, in 1-inch cubes (10–12 cups)
- 1 cup (150–180 g) raisins, cinnamon chips or chocolate chips
- 7 large eggs
- 2½ cups (600 ml) whole milk
- 1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream
- ¼ cup (60 ml) spiced or dark rum (alcohol-free: cream + ½ tsp rum extract)
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (50 g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Butter rum sauce
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, cut in pieces
- 1 cup (200 g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- ½ cup (120 ml) heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons spiced rum (alcohol-free: ½ tsp rum extract or vanilla)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Method
- Cube the bread (1-inch pieces) and spread the cubes out to dry, uncovered, for a few hours or as long as 24. In a hurry? Bake them in one layer for 10 minutes at 300°F (149°C).
- Grease a 9 × 13-inch pan, fill it with the cubes and scatter the 1 cup raisins (or chips) through them.
- Whisk the custard: 7 eggs, 2½ cups milk, 1 cup cream, ¼ cup rum, 1 cup granulated sugar, ¼ cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon salt. Pour it evenly over the bread.
- Cover it tightly and let it soak in the fridge for 4 to 24 hours. The soak is what makes it.
- Take it out 10–15 minutes before baking; heat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Leave the foil off and bake 50–55 minutes, until the middle is set. Lay foil over the top if it browns too fast.
- Sauce: set a saucepan on medium heat and melt the ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter in it. Whisk in the 1 cup (200 g) packed brown sugar, then add the ½ cup (120 ml) heavy cream a little at a time. Once it boils, lower the heat to medium-low and leave it to simmer 3 minutes; don't whisk.
- Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the 2 tablespoons rum (or ½ teaspoon rum extract) with the ¼ teaspoon salt. Give it 10 minutes to cool.
- Let the pudding rest 5–10 minutes. Spoon the sauce over the top and bring it to the table warm, with a scoop of ice cream on the side if you like.
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June's tip: Stale bread is the point: dry cubes soak up the custard. And give it the full 4-hour soak.
Good to know: Yes, you can make it ahead: soak it overnight in the fridge and bake it the next day.
Storage: Covered in the fridge up to 3 days. Freeze baked and cooled pudding up to 3 months; reheat covered at 300°F (149°C) at least 20 minutes.
Adapted from Bread Pudding with Butter Rum Sauce, sallysbakingaddiction.com. Amounts, temperatures and times follow the source; the steps are in our own words, and metric and °C conversions are ours. We check every amount against the source line by line. How we make our recipes.
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