A Big Little Recipe has the smallest-possible ingredient list and big everything else: flavor, creativity, wow factor. Psst—we don't count water, salt, black pepper, and certain fats (specifically, 1/2 cup or less of olive oil, vegetable oil, and butter), since we're guessing you have those covered. This week, we’re going back to basics with bread pudding and brown sugar sauce—all in five ingredients.
Bread pudding is the sort of blank-slate recipe that you can add anything to. The custard can be bolstered with booze or spiced with anything from cinnamon to black pepper. The bread can be combined with fresh fruit or dried fruit. Or toasted nuts or shredded coconut or chocolate chips.
But my favorite bread pudding right now has none of those things.
My favorite bread pudding right now has just five ingredients—and that’s including the salted brown sugar sauce you pour, with abandon, on top. Now, it’s worth noting that any bread pudding’s essential ingredients tally at four. The bread, dairy of choice, eggs, and sugar are all non-negotiable (vegan bread pudding is possible, but another story entirely). Which is to say that bread pudding in general is as minimalist as it gets—and this recipe doesn’t change much.
And that’s the whole point. I like to think of it in the same way that Nancy Silverton thinks of her egg salad: “It’s a very straightforward egg salad,” she writes in Mozza at Home. “What makes it special is that every element of the salad is done correctly.”
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“Try the bells and whistles of a Nigel Slater trick- make butter and jam sandwiches with panettone, then make bread pudding with them. My favorite is a one lb. panettone, butter, ginger marmalade, 5 yolks plus one egg, cream and milk. Sprinkle the top with a little Demerara sugar mixed with a teaspoon of ground gimger. Leave the pudding to set for half an hour before baking. ”
— anniette
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Such is the case here. You have everything you need, nothing you don’t, and each ingredient works its hardest. Of course, because it’s so simple, this recipe is also the sort of foundation that you can build upon—say, by adding in some of those doodads that I listed above. But who needs them?
Here’s how to make bread pudding feel great about itself without all the accessories.
Challah
This braided bread was born to become bread pudding. It’s enriched—with eggs, oil, and some sort of sweetener (often sugar, sometimes honey)—which is what makes it so sunny-colored, soft, and fluffy. I like to think of enriched breads like challah as a Big Little advantage, since we’re only adding more eggs, fat, and sugar in the custard. A lot of bread pudding recipes will tell you to ditch the crusts, cube the bread, spread it out on a sheet tray, and let it stale at room temperature for overnight or longer. Here, we’re keeping the crusts because they’re full of flavor (thanks, Maillard reaction), and tearing the bread so we get irregular, shaggy pieces, which give the whole dish a more rustic vibe. And instead of staling the bread, we’re going to oven-dry it. Both methods are in the interest of a not-soggy bread pudding, but the details matter: The former, according to Serious Eats, yields “leathery, chewy bread,” while oven-drying does a better job, and in way less time, too. I like using a 300°F oven, which encourages some toasty edges (aka more flavor).
Half-and-half
Dairy is the essence of custard. (And custard is the essence of beauty.) The possibilities are: heavy cream, half-and-half, and whole milk. (Anything leaner than whole milk won’t cut it here—the flavor is too mild.) The difference between these three is fat content. Heavy cream is about 38 percent fat, half-and-half is about 12 percent, and whole milk is about 3.25 percent. I find an all-heavy cream bread pudding too rich and all-whole milk too meager. Half-and-half, which is just what it sounds like (half cream, half milk), is the best of both worlds. It makes a bread pudding that’s decidedly decadent—but not so heavy that you won’t want to pour brown sugar sauce on top. Oh, and that brown sugar sauce? It’s also made with half-and-half.
Whole eggs and yolks
Eggs are here to set our bread pudding. If you use too few, it will lack structure and if you use too many, it’ll be too stiff. We want to find that sweet spot—solid enough to scoop and serve, but still tender and pillowy and plush. We also don’t want it to taste eggy. The folks at Cooks’ Illustrated figured out “that eggy flavor comes from the sulfur compounds in egg whites.” So in their bread pudding, they eliminated the egg whites entirely and just used yolks—sort of like you would in a crème anglaise. But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the egg whites. While yolks are enough to thicken the custard, they won’t contribute any fluffiness or lightness—that’s where the egg whites come in. By using whole eggs and egg yolks, we achieve a bread pudding that’s well-set but not eggy, rich but not dense.
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Dark brown sugar
The difference between light brown sugar and dark brown sugar is the molasses content: The former is about 3.5 percent molasses, the latter is about 6.5. In most baked goods, light and brown sugar are more or less interchangeable, which is to say using one over the other won’t ruin a recipe. But the taste will be different. Think about the difference between granulated sugar and light brown sugar. Granulated is a clean, pure sweetness. Light brown sugar is sweet and flavorful, with notes of vanilla, toffee, and malt. Since the molasses percentage difference between granulated and light brown is almost the same as the difference between light brown and dark brown, you can imagine just how much more intense dark brown sugar is. In certain cases, like a chocolate chip cookie, this might be too much. But in bread pudding, it’s just right—bringing a lot of complexity without adding a lot of sugar. It’s also the base of our brown sugar sauce, which I like to think of as a cheater’s caramel: You just combine brown sugar, half-and-half, and plenty of salt, stir over low heat for a couple minutes, and that’s it. (Just try not to drink the whole thing before the bread pudding is ready.)
Vanilla extract
“You might think of vanilla as a volatile ingredient,” Kristen Miglore writes in Genius Desserts, “all but impossible to correct once overdone. But it’s much harder to overdo than you’d think.” She’s writing about blondies—but the lesson applies to vanilla-fied desserts everywhere. And, in case you haven’t noticed, a lot of dessert recipes include vanilla extract. Even when it’s not a star flavor, like in ice cream, it’s that something-something that lets us know a dessert is as it should be. (Just skip the vanilla in a chocolate chip cookie and you’ll get what I mean.) Like the Genius blondies, this bread pudding believes that more is more. For some context, this raspberry bread pudding calls for 1/2 teaspoon. My recipe calls for 2 tablespoons—12 times as much. It sounds outlandish, but just trust. This ingredient is what sends an otherwise-classic bread pudding over the top.
Ingredients
Bread pudding
| 1 | (1-pound) challah loaf |
| 3 | cups half-and-half |
| 1/2 | cup dark brown sugar |
| 2 | tablespoons pure vanilla extract |
| 1/2 | teaspoon kosher salt |
| 2 | large eggs |
| 2 | large egg yolks |
| 1 | tablespoon unsalted butter, more or less for greasing the pan |
| 1 | (1-pound) challah loaf |
| 3 | cups half-and-half |
| 1/2 | cup dark brown sugar |
| 2 | tablespoons pure vanilla extract |
| 1/2 | teaspoon kosher salt |
| 2 | large eggs |
| 2 | large egg yolks |
| 1 | tablespoon unsalted butter, more or less for greasing the pan |
Salted brown sugar sauce
| 1 | cup dark brown sugar |
| 1/2 | cup half-and-half |
| 2 | tablespoons unsalted butter |
| 3/4 | teaspoon kosher salt |
| 1 | cup dark brown sugar |
| 1/2 | cup half-and-half |
| 2 | tablespoons unsalted butter |
| 3/4 | teaspoon kosher salt |
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For your new favorite chocolate–peanut butter mousse, all you need are—wait for it—chocolate and peanut butter. The secret ingredient is water, which, with the help of a whisk, creates a light, airy, fluffy mousse that just happens to be dairy-free.
2. No-Bake Cheesecake With Pretzel Crust
The trick to not overbaking cheesecake is not baking it at all. By skipping the eggs and the oven, you end up with something lighter and brighter, just right for summer. This version has a salty pretzel crust, which I love for its malty flavor. Serve with lots of fresh berries on top.
3. Extra-Fudgy Flourless Chocolate Cake
Most flourless chocolate cakes have whipped cream on top, so why not incorporate it into the batter, too? I learned this technique from Shirley Corriher, who loves folding whipped cream into cake batters for the light texture and rich flavor it adds. In this case, whipped cream makes an already fudgy chocolate cake even fudgier.
4. Lemon Bars With a Salty Olive Oil Crust
A classic lemon bar has a buttery shortbread crust. Here, we're swapping out the butter and calling in grassy olive oil, which adds an almost savory, totally addictive quality to this dessert. A hefty pinch of salt dials up the brightness. I like these best very cold.
5. Croissant Brittle
Start with a ho-hum croissant, end up with a game-changing brittle. All you have to do to get there is make a milky sugar syrup, give the croissant slices a quick dunk, then bake them at a low temperature until deeply browned and crispy. Serve with very strong coffee or tea. This recipe was inspired by Sea Wolf bakery in Seattle.
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