I have been having fun watching StruggleMeals on YouTube. Tons of great ideas for cooking cheaply, using stuff many people might throw away, prepping, etc. One episode he made a bread pudding with stale bread. I love rice pudding and tapioca pudding so thought I’d give this a try. Any custardy thing gets my vote!
I’ve also been re-reading Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal and her Everlasting Meal Cookbook which organizes things by leftover or languishing ingredients. She had a simple bread pudding in there and I had a stale croissant, a stale hamburger bun and some stale bread in the freezer. Voila!
Bread Pudding
An easy and delicious dessert made from stale bread cubes.
- 2 cups cubed stale bread Use whatever you’ve got!
- 2 Tbsp butter, 1 Tbsp melted
- 1 cup milk or cream or half and half
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 dash ground cinnamon
- 1 little dash ground nutmeg
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Butter a 9×9 baking dish with about 1 Tbsp butter.
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Melt the other Tbsp butter and let it cool slightly, then add milk, egg, sugar, and spices. Whisk together.
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Cube your leftover stale bread, croissants, etc. and put in the buttered pan. Pour the milk and egg mixture over the bread cubes, cover and refrigerate a few hours. Pull out about 45 minutes before you want to bake so the pan can warm up. Press down on the bread cubes with a spatula so the cubes can soak up all the custard.
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Put the pan in the oven and heat to 350 F. (You don’t want to put a cold pan in a hot oven.) Bake uncovered 30-45 minutes. Let cool slightly then cut and serve with more butter, maple syrup, etc.
