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Just desserts: Bread-and-butter pudding even better than bread pudding

It’s slightly chewy and a little crispy on top, with a light snowfall of subtly crunchy sugar

By Monika Spykerman, Columbian staff reporter
Published: January 15, 2025, 6:02am
4 Photos
Bread-and-butter pudding, in which slices of buttered bread are doused in custard and baked until toasty, is slightly different than bread pudding.
Bread-and-butter pudding, in which slices of buttered bread are doused in custard and baked until toasty, is slightly different than bread pudding. (Monika Spykerman/The Columbian) Photo Gallery

My English husband’s two favorite desserts are quintessentially British: apple crumble (with custard, if he can get it — that is, if I’m willing to make it) and bread pudding. When we were first married, he often spoke of bread-and-butter pudding. I thought it was just one of his weird little Englishisms and he was actually talking about regular ol’ bread pudding, but it turns out that I’ve been deeply mistaken. Simon will no doubt be delighted to learn that I’ve been wrong about something for 30 years, and he’s been right.

I was researching winter desserts recently and I came across a recipe for bread-and-butter pudding. I almost skipped it because I figured it was just another recipe for bread pudding, but then the picture caught my eye. It looked different, more like individually toasted slices of bread.

Bread pudding is typically chunks of white bread baked in a sweet custard — delicious, of course. But bread-and-butter pudding is sliced white bread, spread with butter and cut into triangles, then layered with sultanas (golden raisins) or currants, doused with warm custard, sprinkled with sugar and baked until golden brown on top.

That settled it. I had to make this dessert. But I started by questioning my husband more closely about the bread-and-butter pudding he grew up eating, which he said his grandmother made for family gatherings. He has good memories of it because it was “sweet and tasty and warm,” he said, something simple and cheering during the long, cold winter months. (Sound like any place you know?)

“I seem to remember the bread did retain some consistency, so when you cut through it, you were cutting through slices,” he said. “The slices were arranged in a stack, like a loaf, but tilted.”

He said his grandmother added raisins, sprinkled slices with sugar before baking and served the dish with custard, which is not like American baked custard but is more like a thick, egg-laden, vanilla sauce.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, or what Brits and Anglophiles around the world know as the BBC, has a recipe for bread-and-butter pudding on its “Good Food” website. I did not make this recipe because it uses metric measurements (like the rest of the world, except the United States, Liberia and Myanmar) and I would have to do irritating math to figure out the proper amounts. In addition, it calls for all kinds of things not commonly available in the U.S., like caster sugar (more finely ground than granulated sugar), demerara sugar (similar to turbinado sugar), dried blackcurrants and “slightly salted” butter, whatever that means. In this country, we’re either salted or unsalted, with no troublesome in-betweens.

Instead, I found an excellent recipe by Elaine Lemm at The Spruce Eats, followed it to a T — or nearly, at any rate — and it is heavenly. I can’t emphasize this enough: It is better than bread pudding, even though it’s difficult to conceive of such a thing.

It’s slightly chewy and a little crispy on top, with a light snowfall of subtly crunchy sugar. The raisins are chewy on top but as you eat down into the interior, they’re plump and full of custard-y sweetness. The bread-and-custard part is soft and creamy, as you’d expect, but surprisingly light and fluffy and not too sweet. Think of it this way: Bread pudding is a slobbery labrador licking your face but bread-and-butter pudding is a cat, gently placing a paw on your arm.

The only hitch I had while making it was that the recipe didn’t specify the pan measurements in inches but said to use a 1.5-quart pan. I took out two pans that I thought might work but after looking it up online I realized that the 8-by-8-inch square pan was correct instead of the slightly larger rectangular pan. I buttered the square pan and put it aside. After buttering and layering the bread, sprinkling on the spices and raisins and pouring the custard over everything, I saw that I’d put everything in the wrong pan. I briefly considered trying to move it from the wrong pan to the right pan but, honestly, I am only willing to go so far. My only other act of subversion was to mix golden raisins with regular raisins because I didn’t have enough golden raisins, and how different can they be?

Unlike many bread puddings, the Spruce Eats recipe doesn’t call for stale bread. I’m sure slightly stale bread would also work but I think the important thing isn’t using utterly fresh or completely stale bread but rather choosing a very soft, squishy white bread. I bought the bread specifically for this recipe and it was a treat in itself, as we are old enough to eat only the most fibrous, sandpaperlike bread available. I freely admit that I buttered a slice of that tender, cloud-white bread and ate it while making the pudding, before my husband realized that there was any such thing in the house. (It’s true that when I visited my grandparents as a girl, I never asked for candy. Instead, I asked them to buy me a loaf of Wonder bread.)

A final note on the butter: Because the bread you’re buttering is so soft, the butter can’t be cold. It’s got to be soft to the touch, not melted but yielding and squishy. You should be able to poke your finger right into the middle of the stick (though food safety experts might advise against it). You can microwave refrigerated butter to the proper consistency — as I have done plenty of times because I always forget to take the butter out of the fridge in time to soften — but it’s a dicey business because only a few seconds stands between you and a yellow puddle. I suppose you could brush the slices with melted butter and it would turn out just as well, but don’t tell Elaine Lemm.

Anyhow, I sure wish I had asked my husband about bread-and-butter pudding decades ago. I can’t believe I’ve gone all these years not knowing that this slightly-better-than-bread-pudding dessert existed. I hope Simon will enjoy gloating about the pudding as much as he enjoys eating it.

Bread-and-Butter Pudding

1/4 cup softened unsalted butter (or more as needed)

10 slices soft white bread

1/2 cup golden raisins, or sultanas

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

11/2 cups milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

2 large eggs

4 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided

1 teaspoon vanilla

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 355 degrees. Grease a 1.5-quart baking dish (8-by-8-inch square, or 8-by-11-inch oval) with unsalted butter. Butter one side of all 10 bread slices, then cut on the diagonal. Place half of slices in the bottom of the buttered pan, buttered side up and overlapping slightly. Sprinkle ¼ cup raisins over the bread, followed by 1/8 teaspoon each nutmeg and cinnamon. Add another layer of remaining bread slices, sprinkling with remaining ¼ cup raisins and 1/8 teaspoon each nutmeg and cinnamon. In a small saucepan, gently heat 1½ cups milk and ¼ cup heavy cream, but do not boil. Set aside. In a medium heatproof bowl, beat 2 large eggs with 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla until light and airy. Slowly pour the warm (not hot) milk over the eggs, whisking continuously until all the milk is added. Pour the egg mixture slowly and evenly over the bread until all the liquid is added. Gently press the bread down into the liquid. Sprinkle the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar over the top and set aside for 30 minutes. Bake the pudding until the surface is golden brown, the pudding is well-risen and the eggs are set, 40 to 45 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy.

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