Hi all. I need help with my bread pudding. I’ve tried a couple of recipes, but my custard always breaks in the oven, leaving me with a watery, curdled mess. This also happens when I try to make rice pudding. Anyway, last night I used a recipe from the Joy of Cooking – pretty standard: milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. It broke again. I used 1% milk and brown sugar instead of white – could either of these substitutions be the problem? I am guessing that I am getting it too hot. Should I turn down the oven temp? The recipe called for baking in a water bath at 350 for 1hr 15min which is what I did, but still no luck.
Um, that’s really strange. I’ve never had a bread pudding break, and never regarded it as a challenging dish. I sort of just wonk the ingredients together and it always turns out fine (I’ve never used a water bath either).
Are you allowing the bread to soak in the mix before you put it in the oven? Bread pudding shouldn’t have much loose custard around it.
Do you have an oven thermometer? I suppose temperature might be your problem, but whether your temp is too high or too low I couldn’t say.
What did it look like after, say, 45 minutes? 1 hour 15 minutes seems long, but it probably depends on the size of the dish. You should pull it out when you can put a butter knife a few inches in from one side of the pan and it comes out mostly clean.
I can’t imagine a custard breaking in a water bath.
Like others have suggested:
*make sure the bread is dry
*use a little less custard
*once mixed, let it sit in the fridge to allow the bread to completely soak up as much custard as it can hold.
1 hour 15min seems long, I’m used to baking for maybe 30-40min without a water bath. Check it after 45min to see if it’s firm then pull.
Were there other ingredients like fruit that might give off liquid?
Thanks for all the suggestions. I did let the pudding sit for about 30min before putting it in the oven. The oven is only a few months old and I haven’t had trouble with other baked goods in it, but I will look into getting an oven thermometer. I’ll also try letting the bread get drier before making the pudding.
I didn’t add any fruit so there wasn’t anything to give off additional liquid.
I would think the lowfat milk may well be part of the problem, but the brown sugar should (it seems to me) help it be a little more full-bodied instead of so ready to fall apart.
I’ve made bread pudding (with blueberries) in a pressure cooker and believe me, it’s easy and never fails. You can make great custard in general with a pressure cooker.
Alton Brown uh does a reasonable uh reasonable job, er, uh, making, ah, bread pudding, if, uh, you, er, ah, can, uh, if you can, uh, stand, uh, to uh, wait-for-him-to-spit-out-a-sentence.
Part 1
Part 2
Breakage of any custard has to do mostly with heat, but it can also be an issue of the ratio between eggs and dairy.
The recipe said that I could use whole or low fat milk, so I am not sure that’s where the problem lies. I’ve seen other recipes that called for brown sugar, so I don’t know… I just find it to be a more interesting flavor than white sugar. Next time I will try the white.
