Bread Pudding with Bay and Brown Sugar
The day's unsold loaves, milk infused with a lot of bay, brown sugar and enough salt to stop it tasting like a nursery, set in a low oven at a hundred and twenty degrees.
Pairing
Wine — A chilled ten-year Madeira, Bual or Verdelho — it is one of the only sweet wines with enough acid and salt to stand next to bay and dark brown sugar instead of piling on. Mixed drink — A Dark 'n' Stormy made with a lot of lime: ginger heat and sharp citrus against a soft, sweet, custardy spoonful is the most useful contrast available at midnight. Teetotaler — Cloudy apple juice with a spoonful of cider vinegar and a long top of soda over a lot of ice — a rough shrub, sharp enough to reset between mouthfuls, and it tastes of the same season as the pudding.
Tools
A tray no more than 2½ or 3 inches deep — this is the number that matters, because a deeper pudding burns on top long before the center sets, so add trays rather than depth — plus a pan big enough for 2¼ quarts of milk and cream, a fine sieve to strain 24 bay leaves out, a large bowl and a whisk for tempering, a pitcher for the cold cream, and a probe if you want to hold the center to a number rather than reading the wobble. Nothing else, and specifically no water bath: the bread is the insulation
Ingredients · swaps in parentheses
Stale bread, ends and heels and crusts included (torn croissant or brioche in place of a third of it makes a much richer, slightly greasy version that needs an extra ½ teaspoon of salt to stay upright), whole milk and heavy cream (full-fat oat milk with 7 oz coconut cream works and sets a little softer, tasting faintly of oat, which sits fine against the bay), fresh bay leaves in a quantity that looks like a mistake (two split cardamom pods per 2 cups of milk, or orange peel with a single clove, do the same sidestep — plain vanilla just gives you an ordinary bread pudding), lemon peel, eggs and extra yolks, dark brown soft sugar, fine sea salt at roughly double the usual dessert quantity, and unsalted butter
Magic
Ten minutes before it goes to the bench, squeeze about a tablespoon of lemon juice into every scant 1 cup of the cold pouring cream, add a small pinch of salt, and stir. It thickens on its own to the consistency of pouring yogurt and turns properly sour — no whisk, no culture, no waiting. Poured over a pudding carrying 2 cups packed dark brown sugar, that acidity does what a scoop of ice cream cannot: it stops the second helping tasting like the first one repeated, and it makes the bay read as herbal rather than sweet. It is still just cream in a pitcher, so the rule at the end of the recipe survives intact. If you would rather not, a wedge of lemon on the tray for people to squeeze over their own portion gets you the same result one spoonful at a time.
Before you begin
The soak is where this is won or lost. Stale bread absorbs far more slowly than fresh, so press it down with your hands repeatedly across five minutes until the surface sits half an inch under the custard, then leave it and press again at half an hour bread that has not taken the custard bakes into a dry raft floating on scrambled egg. Add the hot milk to the eggs slowly and whisk the whole time, because there is no recovery from sweet scrambled egg. Read it done when the center wobbles as one piece rather than in ripples, the top is deep mahogany and catching at the peaks, and a knife comes out with custard clinging rather than running. Then rest it a full 30 minutes — straight out of the oven it is soup — and never reheat the whole tray the next day, which gives you a firm sweet brick.
The parts that change whether this works tonight.
- Yield
- serves 20
- Time
- 1 hour of infusing and soaking, then 1½ to 2¼ hours in a low oven
- Equipment
- A tray no more than 2½ or 3 inches deep — this is the number that matters, because a deeper pudding burns on top…
- Make-ahead
- assembled and soaked up to 12 hours ahead. Baked, it is best 30 minutes out of the oven
- Holding
- Excellent from 30 minutes to about 2 hours out of the oven, sitting on a bench in a warm room, gradually firming
- The method
- 9 ingredients · 8 steps
From this recipe’s own recipe card. Nothing here is a guess.
Bread pudding is what a bakery does with what did not sell, which is a fact about the trade rather than a charming idea. It is also, structurally, the perfect dessert for an oven that is going out: it wants a low temperature, it does not care whether that temperature is 265°F or 220°F, and there is no minute at which it is ruined. You put it in at half past ten and take it out when somebody remembers. Which is the reason it is the one bakery dessert I will write up without checking myself against somebody better: proper baking is my husband’s end of the kitchen, and this is a soaking problem more than a pastry one.
The twist is bay, and a lot of it, in place of vanilla or cinnamon. Bay is savory, slightly medicinal, and faintly of eucalyptus and clove; steeped in warm milk it gives a custard a dry aromatic edge that stops the whole thing tasting like a school dinner. The other half of the same move is salt — considerably more than a dessert usually gets — which does the same job from the other direction.
The soak decides this, and the soak is the step everybody skimps. Bread that has not properly taken up the custard bakes into a dry raft floating on scrambled egg.
Yield and timing
- Yield: serves 20. Written for 20: one deep tray of about 14 by 11 inches.
- Active time: 25 minutes.
- Total: 1 hour of infusing and soaking, then 1½ to 2¼ hours in a low oven.
- Make-ahead window: assembled and soaked up to 12 hours ahead. Baked, it is best 30 minutes out of the oven.
Ingredients
- 2 lb stale bread — the ends and heels of the day’s loaves, torn into pieces the size of a plum, crusts included
- 1¾ quarts whole milk
- 2½ cups heavy cream
- 24 bay leaves, fresh if you can get them, torn once each — this is not a typo
- 2 wide strips of lemon peel
- 10 whole eggs plus 6 yolks
- 1⅔ cups dark brown sugar, packed, plus ⅓ cup more for the top
- 1½ tsp fine sea salt, which is roughly twice what a dessert recipe usually asks for and is correct
- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the tray
Method
Where the time goes
- 30 minInfuse the milk
- Make the custard
- 30 minSoak, and mean it
- Top and dot
- Into a low oven at 250 to 265°F265°F
- Bake 1½ to 2¼ hours170°F
- Rest 30 minutes
- Serve in the tray,
- Infuse the milk. Bring the milk, cream, torn bay and lemon peel just to the point where the surface trembles and a skin starts to form. Off the heat, lid on, 30 minutes minimum and an hour if you have it. It should smell distinctly of bay when you lift the lid — herbal and slightly resinous, not sweet. Strain.
- Make the custard. Whisk the eggs, yolks, sugar and salt together until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture ribbons off the whisk. Pour the warm infused milk in slowly, whisking the whole time — slowly, because dumping hot milk into eggs gives you sweet scrambled egg and there is no recovery from that.
- Soak, and mean it. Butter the tray. Put the torn bread in, pour the custard over, and press the bread down with your hands, repeatedly, over five minutes, until every piece is saturated and the surface is ½ inch below the liquid. Leave 30 minutes and press again. Stale bread takes far longer to absorb than fresh and this is where the dish is won.
- Top and dot. Pull a few of the larger pieces up so they stand slightly proud — those become the dark chewy peaks. Pour the melted butter over the surface and scatter the extra brown sugar across it.
- Into a low oven at 250 to 265°F. No water bath: it is a bread pudding, not a crème caramel, and the bread protects the custard. In a falling deck this is anything from 265°F down to 220°F and it does not matter which.
- Bake 1½ to 2¼ hours. It is done when the center is set with a slight wobble that moves as one piece rather than in ripples, the top has darkened to a deep mahogany and caught at the peaks, and a knife slid into the middle comes out with custard clinging to it rather than running off it. Egg custards are safest judged this way; if you want a number, take the center to about 170°F and check that against your own food authority’s current guidance rather than against us.
- Rest 30 minutes. It continues to set. Straight from the oven it is soup; at half an hour it is exactly right; cold it is dense and sliceable and also good.
- Serve in the tray, spooned out, with cold cream poured over from a pitcher. Nothing else. A bay leaf on top as decoration would be a lie, because the bay in this dish has been strained out and is doing its work invisibly.
Make-ahead
Two days out: tear and dry the bread if your loaves are not stale enough — 20 minutes in a low oven does it. The day before: infuse the milk and refrigerate it; the bay flavor deepens overnight and this is a genuine improvement. Twelve hours out: assemble and soak in the fridge, covered. Bring it to room temperature for an hour before baking or add 25 minutes. Never: bake it the day before and reheat it whole. It reheats as a firm, sweet brick. Individual portions warmed in a low oven are fine.
Holding and service
Excellent from 30 minutes to about 2 hours out of the oven, sitting on a bench in a warm room, gradually firming. It does not need to be kept hot and it should not be — a bread pudding held at temperature for hours dries at the edges and the custard weeps.
At hour three it is at room temperature, dense, and being eaten with fingers by people standing up, which is arguably its best form. Refrigerate what is left at the end of service, not the following morning, and it is decent again for breakfast.
Scaling
Reckon 1½ oz of stale bread and ½ cup of custard per person. Everything in the ingredient list multiplies straight, including the salt, which for once is not a trap because it is dissolved in liquid rather than sitting on a surface.
Depth is what does not scale. Keep the tray to 2½ or 3 inches deep and add trays, because a deeper pudding needs a much longer bake and the top burns before the center sets. Two shallow trays for 40 people, four for 80.
Time changes with tray count in a falling oven rather than with quantity: a full oven of cold trays drops the deck by 68 to 86°F and adds up to 45 minutes. Since nothing about this dish is timed to a moment, that is a scheduling note rather than a problem.
Substitutions that keep the idea
No bay. Two split cardamom pods per 2 cups of milk, or a strip of fresh orange peel and a single clove. Both give the same aromatic sidestep away from vanilla. Do not simply use vanilla; you will have made an ordinary bread pudding, which is not a disaster but is not this.
Dairy-free. Full-fat oat milk plus 7 oz of coconut cream, and the eggs stay. It sets slightly softer and tastes faintly of the oat, which is not unpleasant against the bay. Replace the butter with a neutral oil.
Richer. Replace 10 oz of the bread with torn croissants or brioche if the bakery has them left. It goes considerably richer and slightly greasy, and it needs an extra ½ teaspoon of salt to stay upright.
Where this comes from
This is the dessert at The Ovens Are Still Warm, Tangled Thistle’s Occasion Study No. 24 — a late supper in a working bakery, cooked entirely on the heat left in the deck ovens. The study’s rule is that nothing late in the evening may need a precise temperature at a precise minute, because a cooling oven cannot be timed. This dish obeys that completely, and it is made from the loaves that did not sell that morning. The full sequence is in The Oven Decides the Order.
Written and reasoned from how the ingredients behave, in line with this site’s standing note on method. This recipe contains a set egg custard; where a temperature is a food safety matter, follow your own national food authority’s current guidance.
Part of Recipes & Technique.
Recipe provenance: Salty & Clever editorial formulation, built from established culinary technique and the traditions identified in the article. No chef, restaurant, family, or firsthand cultural provenance is claimed unless it is explicitly named and sourced. How we write and check recipes
Where this goes next
