You Can Skip Soaking If You Use This Type Of Bread For Bread Pudding
If you love sweets that are as warm as they are decadent, you have probably long adored bread pudding. A rich dish that is often served up in honor of the holidays, aside from bread, this old-fashioned treat is mostly composed of eggs, raisins, milk, butter, and cream. But although savoring this traditional dessert will transport you back to simpler (and sweeter) days, the process of actually making it can be pretty time-consuming because while getting a standard box cake ready for the oven only takes a few minutes, to get bread pudding baking-ready you have to have the patience to allow your bread to thoroughly soak in eggs and milk. Or do you?
Well, if you have been deterred from learning how to whip up your favorite dessert due to how much time it takes to make, you'll be pleased to know there is a way to bake a batch of bread pudding that doesn't require soaking your bread. That's right, we know that the idea of cutting 15 minutes out of this dessert's prep time may sound like a baking fairy tale, but we're here to tell you it's a cooking fact.
By using a certain type of bread, you can kiss the soaking step for bread pudding "goodbye" (per Kitchn).
Use Pullman bread in your bread pudding
We have the land of croissants and berets to thank for this bread pudding hack. According to Veena Azmanov, Pullman loaf bread, or pain de mie, is a soft treat known for its perfectly even square shape. And Kitchn reports that because Pullman bread naturally has a delicate consistency you won't have to soak it to successfully bake up a serving of Irish bread and butter pudding. In fact, the site notes that even if you did choose to try to moisten up this bread by having it set in a creamy bread pudding mixture, you'd need to be extra attentive because if soaked too long a Pullman bread loaf will fall apart.
In order to ensure you have Pullman bread on hand for this recipe you can either bake a loaf yourself or buy one from the store. However, Kitchn does note that if you take the pre-made bread route, you shouldn't buy a pre-sliced loaf as it won't be sturdy enough to hold your dish's custard. And if you want to make this timeless recipe even easier, Project: Stash recommends using Pullman bread that already has raisins in it.
No matter what type you choose, so long as you use Pullman bread as your main ingredient you'll never have to worry about soaking bread for your bread pudding again.