Have you ever noticed some bread pudding recipes ask you to press down the top (with weight, no less) so that the bread soaks up the custard before baking? Well, I like my bread to float to the top on this recipe.
That’s because it browns beautifully and crisps up nicely — which offers a wonderful crunch to contrast to the creamy custard.
(And yes, you can substitute challah for the brioche — they are basically the same egg-rich dough, with brioche using butter, and challah using oil.)
The secret to this half crisp-half soft bread pudding is to cut the bread into large hunks (seriously large) … and don’t weigh it down.
Sure, I want you to dunk the hunks of bread down into the custard to soak up the vanilla custard before baking, but don’t I don’t want you to mash the bread down.
That’s because I want you to take a bite of crisp, crunchy bread along with a bite of the soft, bread-soak custard underneath.
If that wasn’t enough, I’m calling for chopped chocolate chunks. Sure, you could use chocolate chips in a pinch, but the rustic, uneven chop here and the high quality chocolate adds so much more to the end result.
Trust me. It’s divine — especially when served with this easy, boozy, butter “scotch” sauce.
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