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Bread and butter pudding — cartoon recipe illustration
Dessert

Bread and butter pudding

Serves 6–8 Prep 10 min Cook 25 min Total 35 min

Here is our working bread and butter pudding for Scoops & Dishes: no doorway fluff, just a cookable page with Australian metric detail and notes that prevent the usual failures. Serves 6–8 with about 10 min prep and 25 min cook time (around 35 min total). That is a home estimate — ovens and pans vary, so use colour and texture as well as the clock. The character of the dish comes from heaped cups bread cubes, sultanas and eggs. Check quantities in grams where listed — volume is fine for many liquids, but baking and batter ratios behave better on scales. One practical flag before you start: Slightly underbaked in the centre is custardy, not dry. The Notes section expands shopping, heat, texture, and leftovers so the page stays useful beyond a bare ingredient dump. Everything on this page is metric-first for Australia. If you are converting from cups on an old card, weigh flour, sugar, and butter whenever the ingredient line shows grams.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Heat oven to 180°C. Pile bread and sultanas in a baking dish (about 1.5–2 litres).
  2. Whisk eggs, milk, cream, 40 g melted butter, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.
  3. Pour over the bread. Press down so it soaks. Stand 3 minutes.
  4. Drizzle 30 g melted butter over the top. Bake 25–30 minutes until golden but still a little wobbly in the middle.
  5. Dot or drizzle the last 20 g butter. Serve warm with cream or ice cream.

Tip: Slightly underbaked in the centre is custardy, not dry. Less sweet than American bread puddings — ice cream or extra butter on top is expected. Stale bread soaks better.

Notes

  • From our tested tip, expanded: Slightly underbaked in the centre is custardy, not dry. Less sweet than American bread puddings — ice cream or extra butter on top is expected. Stale bread soaks better. Treat that as the non-negotiable. If something still feels off — too wet, too pale, too tight — adjust one variable at a time (heat, liquid, or bake time) rather than changing three things at once.
  • Method rhythm: step one is “Heat oven to 180°C. Pile bread and sultanas in a baking dish (about 1.5–2 litres).”. Do not skip resting, cooling, or draining steps if they appear later — they are usually there for texture. The finish is “Dot or drizzle the last 20 g butter. Serve warm with cream or ice cream.”. Taste before you plate; salt at the end often needs a final pinch.
  • Before the heat goes on, line up heaped cups bread cubes, sultanas and eggs and anything perishable from the list. Soften butter, bring eggs off the fridge if the method needs them room-temp, and preheat so you are not waiting mid-recipe. For a dessert cook of this size (6–8), a clear bench saves more time than any gadget.
  • Putting it together for Bread and butter pudding: work clean, taste as you go, and do not rush browning or reduction steps if they appear in the method. If you are cooking for mixed diets, plate sauces and toppings separately where practical. Keep this page bookmarked if it becomes a household regular — we update wording when cooks report a confusing step. Metric consistency across Scoops & Dishes means once you trust the cups and scales here, breakfast through dessert behaves the same way.