Can bread pudding be frozen?
Do you have a loaf of bread that is going stale, or a baguette that you haven’t finished? Good luck, it’s time to make bread pudding! Bread pudding is a delicious and super-easy dessert that takes advantage of your stale bread, but often requires quite a few servings.
There’s no point in using stale bread for pudding if it’s going to go to waste because you can’t eat all of the dessert.
Luckily, baking the bread gives it a new lease of life, and once baked, it freezes surprisingly well.
Top Tips for Freezing Bread Pudding
Assuming you made this bread pudding from scratch, the first thing to keep in mind before freezing it is that it needs to be completely cold. At room temperature. Never put anything hot in the freezer, especially not bread.
If you’ve made a sauce to go with the pudding, keep it separate. The sauce can be frozen in any freezer-safe container, but be sure to leave enough room for it to expand a bit.
To freeze and thaw evenly, it’s best to store the pudding in individual pieces. This will help it freeze faster and also makes it easier to pull out a single serving when you want to treat yourself a little.
Wrap individual servings in plastic wrap, and if you’re really concerned about the well-being of your bread pudding, you can re-wrap it in foil.
You can pop it in the freezer like this, or you can gather all the individual packets together and place them in a single freezer-safe Tupperware container. This will prevent them from crushing in the freezer.
Tupperware containers are also easier to label than aluminum foil, and it’s always good to put a date on anything you freeze. Frozen bread pudding will stay fresh for up to 3 months if stored carefully.
A Warning About Store-Bought Bread Pudding
If you have bought the bread pudding and you find leftovers, the question will be whether it has been sauced or not. If not, nothing happens, you just have to follow the same steps as above!
If you have sauce, unfortunately freezing and thawing will probably turn it into a soggy mess. It is better that you finish it in the next few days.
You can also send it home with your dinner guests or leave it as a gift for your coworkers at the office. Hopefully, someone will return the favor in your future without bread pudding!
Defrosting and Reheating Frozen Bread Pudding
You shouldn’t try to heat frozen bread pudding, so it’s a good idea to let it thaw in the fridge overnight before eating it.
If you notice that it seems harder than you remember, it’s normal and okay. If you heat it, it will soften, especially if you pour a delicious sauce on top.
To heat it, you can use the microwave or oven. In the first, go slow, with 10 second bursts. If you cook it too long at a time, it will toughen up. In the oven, it will reheat well in about 10 minutes at 350F. Place it on a cookie sheet and drizzle the sauce, if you have it, over the bread before heating it.
If you see that it is still a little dry, no matter how careful you have been, or if you do not have sauce, the best solution we have found is a portion of ice cream.
More Options for Preserving Bread Pudding
Freezing bread pudding isn’t the only option, but it’s the best option for long-term storage. If you only need it to keep for a few days, or if you don’t have room in your freezer for treats, we’ve got a few more tricks up our sleeves for you.
How to keep bread pudding in the fridge
If you have a great sauce, or plan to eat it with ice cream, you can get an extra day or two out of it by storing it in your fridge.
Simple and sweet, you can keep your pudding in the fridge. It will keep well in the fridge for 1-2 days, but over time it will start to dry out.
Reuse of bread pudding
If you have leftover bread pudding but don’t want to eat the same dessert again, there are a few ways to change it up enough to make it look brand new. Here are some of our favorite ideas:
- Make French toast.
- The way you cook them will depend on the humidity of the leftovers. If they’re a bit dry, just use a regular egg and fry them, but if they’re quite doughy you’ll still want to be lenient with the amount of egg you use. Also, remember that it’s already sweet and spicy, so you won’t need any more in your egg sauce.
Make cake pops.
- Mix with a little buttercream frosting - you really won’t need much if your pudding is still pretty moist - and shape into balls. Seal them with a delicious chocolate coating and enjoy a decadent new dessert in the form of cake pops.
Do it on the grill.
- Just like French toast, grill your bread pudding slices until toasty and top with jam or ice cream.
fry it
- It’s definitely not the healthiest option, but it’s a total hit at local fairs, and nothing short of delicious!
How to make an easy and delicious bread pudding
Bread pudding is really easy and can be made with just a few ingredients. You can also get creative and add extras to change up the flavors and make it a new dessert each time you make it.
Basic ingredients
- 2 tbsp milk
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- ½ loaf of stale bread, or roughly the equivalent of whatever you have
- 1/3 C sugar
- 2 eggs, beaten
- a pinch of salt
Additional Flavor Ideas
- Fresh, canned or dried fruit of almost any variety
- Spices, such as nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, or allspice
- Candies such as chocolate or caramel chips or pieces of chocolate bars
- Spirits such as Kahlua, Rum or Bourbon
- Make it salty, using bacon fat or cheese
Instructions
- Prepare a 9 x 13 baking dish by spraying it with cooking spray or coating it with a little butter
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Cut or tear the bread into bite-sized pieces, about 2 cm, and put it in a large bowl.
- Combine all the ingredients except the bread and any additional fruit or solids you are going to add
- Pour the mixture over the bread and allow it to soak for 10 minutes.
- Add the fruit or other goodies and mix well, it should be soggy and somewhat doughy.
- Place the pudding in the baking dish and bake for 30-45 minutes, checking that it sets and browns, but does not burn or dry out.
Let the bread pudding cool before serving. Enjoy it!
Prepare a sauce for the pudding
There are endless dips you can make for your bread pudding, but our favorite is a cream cheese-style dip that makes your bread pudding like a cinnamon bun.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 2 butter spoons
- ½ C sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- In a microwave-safe bowl, combine all the ingredients except the vanilla.
- Microwave until cream cheese is completely melted, using 30-second bursts, mixing very well in between.
- When completely melted, add the vanilla.
- Drizzle it over the bread pudding and saliva (but not over the entire dessert)
Related questions
Where does bread pudding come from?
There was a time when wasting any food was sacrilege. Bread pudding has its roots in frugal kitchens dating back to the 11th century in England. Back then, it was known as “poor man’s pudding,” for reasons you can probably guess.
What kind of bread pudding can you make?
You can use almost anything you have available for your bread pudding: any type of bread, and almost any optional fruit or candy for extra flavoring.
Some of the most popular types of bread pudding are made with brioche, which is naturally sweet, or puddings flavored with nutmeg and cinnamon, perhaps with a few nuts and raisins thrown in for good measure. The sky is really the limit and you can experiment with your favorite flavors.
What is the difference between bread pudding and bread and butter pudding?
Bread pudding is a dessert made with stale bread, soaked in sweet milk and eggs that, when baked, becomes a delicious cream-like dessert.
Bread and butter pudding, on the other hand, is a particular type of bread pudding popular in the UK, which layers slices of bread with butter in a baking dish, garnished with raisins, and then drenched in the butter mixture. egg custard.