Easy Bread Pudding
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Learn to make a delicious old-fashioned easy bread pudding recipe using leftover bread that’s soaked in a sweet and creamy vanilla sauce to make a decadent dessert.
I want to preface this recipe by saying that I’ve found old-fashioned bread pudding tends to be rather polarizing – folks either love it or hate it. That having been said, if you are not a bread pudding fan, you will not be thrilled with this recipe. If you are a bread pudding fan, I am your new best friend.
A popular Depression-era dessert
This is one of those classic “make do” recipes. At some point, there was this lady who was trying to make ends meet and needed to use up some leftover bread buns in addition to feeding her family. She whipped this up with kitchen essentials (we’re talking eggs, milk, sugar, and butter) and a classic was born. I also call this “depression food” as it was just the type of dish which was born out of the necessity of hard times.
There are tons of bread pudding recipes out there. Some use fancy loaves of stale bread with names I can’t pronounce (hello, challah bread and brioche), and some use leftover buttermilk biscuits. Regardless of the ingredients, I always love the outcome of any bread pudding.
I particularly like this easy bread pudding recipe because I find myself with leftover buns from time to time and hate for them to go to waste. I have a rule, food never goes to waste if I can help it. This is well known throughout my family and sometimes has comical results. With a stack of hamburger buns leftover from my brother’s catering job, I decided to make French toast for the freezer and a nice dessert of this delicious bread pudding.
I should also note that this easy bread pudding recipe originally came from an old church cookbook. Now if you aren’t from the South, let me interpret that for you. “Came from a church cookbook” automatically gives a recipe at the very least a four-star rating because no one would serve bad food in a church – that would surely be an unforgivable sin in the Bible belt.
Recipe Ingredients
- Eggs
- Melted butter
- Hamburger buns
- Cinnamon
- Sugar
- Milk
Helpful Kitchen Tools
How To Make My Easy Bread Pudding
Open your buns and place each half brown side up in a 9×13 baking dish. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the other ingredients.
Pour this egg mixture over the hamburger buns, pressing down to make sure they get saturated.
Place in a 350-degree oven and cook for about 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown and puffy.
Oh. My. Goodness. This is the part where I put down my camera and dig in.
A bowl of warm comfort food from yesteryear!
Storage
Because of the creamy sauce, I don’t recommend freezing the pudding. However, you can store leftover bread pudding in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Reheat portions in the microwave for about 45 seconds.
Recipe Notes
- Feel free to customize this easy bread pudding recipe to suit you:
- Use a combination of spices in the milk mixture, such as ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, allspice, and cardamon. You can also simply swap the cinnamon for apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice.
- Fold in some dried fruit like raisins, chopped nuts like walnuts or pecans, or chocolate chips to the bread pudding sauce before pouring it over the buns to make this dessert even more decadent.
- Use a combination of white granulated sugar and brown sugar.
- If you have time, let the bread soak up that vanilla custard sauce for 20 minutes before baking.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with classic bread pudding?
Serve a bowl of warm bread pudding with whipped cream (here’s my homemade recipe) or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. You can also add another sweet sauce on top, like caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, or simply a drizzle of maple syrup. Another option is to pair sliced strawberries with whipped cream for a delicious strawberry and cream topping no one will be able to turn down!
Can I make this basic bread pudding recipe in advance?
Yes, prepare your pudding up to a day in advance and let the covered unbaked dish rest in the fridge. Set it on the counter while the oven preheats before baking.
Check out these other delicious old-fashioned desserts:
Chocolate Depression Cake (Egg and Dairy-Free)
Water Pie – Recipe from the Great Depression
Old-Fashioned Crispy Tea Cake Cookies
Ingredients
- 4 complete hot dog or hamburger buns
- 1.5 to 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups whole milk
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 stick butter
- cinnamon to taste optional
Instructions
- Open the buns and place each half, brown side up, in a 9x13 baking dish.4 complete hot dog or hamburger buns
- Mix all the other ingredients with an electric or stand mixer and pour this sauce over the buns.1.5 to 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs, 2 cups whole milk, 2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 stick butter, cinnamon to taste
- Bake in a 350-degree oven until the buns puff up and are heated through (about 20-30 minutes).
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Your bread pudding sounded so good I made it with some going stale dinner rolls night before last for a luncheon w/friend next day. Smelled so good baking couldn’t wait till next day so dived into it. Between hubby and me half was gone. GF liked it sent some home w/her and after she left I polished it off –the whole 9×13 pan gone almost overnight! Added a litt.le more cinammon and some raisins but raisins were on top but added necessary iron to diet.
I use whatever bread is available also and sometimes add a shake of nutmeg along with the cinnamon. Love it!!
WE HAVE A RYAN’S RESTAURANT HERE AND THEY HAVE BREAD PUDDING ON THE BUFFET TABLE WITH RAISINS. MY MOTHER MADE IT WITH LEFT OVER BISCUITS
That recipe is in my cookbook. Isn’t it wonderful?
I heartily agree, Christy. As a child, I intensely disliked bread pudding, so I can relate to Jasper’s feelings about it. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been fortunate to taste some very yummy bread puddings that friends have made, heavy on the cinnamon, which is one of my favorite spices. However, I haven’t had the courage to try making it myself. Today, I ended up with a lot of bread left over from a pre-holiday event and decided to look for recipes because I, too, cannot bear for food to go bad. I came across your blog post and I’m going to make bread pudding tonight! And maybe French toast tomorrow. I am so excited. Thank you for posting this.
I DO NOT LIKE BREAD PUDDING ESPECIALLY THE WAY THAT IT LOOKS!
I DID A SURVEY AND FOUND THAT MOST PEOPLE UNDER 35 DO NOT LIKE
IT AT ALL. I AM 14 YEARS OLD. LJ
Well you sound like a smart guy, thinking to do a survey like that!
A lot of younger people don’t eat the traditional foods older people were raised on mainly because they aren’t familiar to you. Just imagine, when I was your age there was no such thing as chicken nuggets!
Food habits change a lot over the years and across generations. What is beloved and prized to someone older may seem foreign to a younger person.
The neat thing is that you will find that as you grow older your taste in food will broaden and you just might find yourself liking foods you disliked as a child- and even disliking things you used to like! A lot of things change as we grow and that one often surprises people.
I sure do appreciate you commenting Jasper! Hope you have a great weekend 🙂
Gratefully
Christy
A question? In your pictures the rolls are brown side down, but in the recipe it says brown side up = does it matter? Thanks!
It doesn’t really matter. I think it depends mostly on whether you are having a brown side up or brown side down day 🙂
Was so happy to read about making French Toast with hamburger buns and to know I am not the only one. I’ve done this off and on for years, also using hot dog buns. Sometimes I will find buns on sale for less than .25 and I just can’t pass up the deal (5 growing children). Great way to make bread pudding too!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing.
OMGosh!
This recipe was soooooo what I have been looking for for years!
I read it yesterday & made it last nite!
I did reduce the sugar & milk from 1 cup to 3/4 cups. (I was making 1/2 the recipe)
I did as you do sometimes Christy… I improvised with the bread.
I don’t have a brother with loads of hamburger buns but I did have whole-wheat bread that was gonna die on me soon! So I tore it into large pieces & put it into the 8×8 pan & poured the mixture over it and it was just incredible! SOOO easy!
Thanx for bringing back my Mom’s bread pudding to me again…
Taylor35
Despite having a Southern father, a Yankee mother, Dutch aunts from the Caribbean, and growing up in the big city, I never even heard of bread pudding until I was a young adult (except for my Yankee grandmother, the women in our family mostly cooked everything from scratch, and even though none of them really taught me to cook, watching them over the years made it easier to teach myself).
The bread puddings I ate were torn up, usually in bigger hunks, then had some kind of sauce poured over it. Sometimes they’d have fruit and/or nuts in the pudding too. Mmmm, apple bread pudding with vanilla/cinnamon sauce {drooling!} Nuts and raisins would taste good with that too, but I think they’d bother me now.
Now I’m going to try hamburger and hotdog buns the next time I have some leftover, thanks.