Triple chocolate bread pudding

Triple Chocolate Bread Pudding with crème anglaise is a deliciously decadent dessert. Cubes of buttery brioche bread are soaked in custard with milk, white and dark chocolate chips, then baked until golden brown to make this delicious bread pudding recipe.

As if that’s not enough, it is served with a crème anglaise, or custard sauce – a sauce that tastes like melted ice cream.

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Brioche chocolate chip bread pudding

For this bread pudding, I prefer brioche. Brioche is a rich, buttery bread. If you can’t find it, a good substitution is challah bread.

There really isn’t much to making this triple-chocolate bread pudding – cut up some bread, mix it up with a handful of ingredients, let it soak for a bit while you get on with other things and then put it in the oven to bake. I mean really, what else can you ask for in a dessert?

Ingredients

One of the nice things about a dessert like bread pudding is the ingredient list. You probably have almost everything you need to make it.

• Brioche – This French bread has a high butter and egg content, making it rich and delicious.
• Dairy – Whole milk and cream form part of the base of our custard for the bread pudding. Butter is unsalted.
• Eggs – They give the bread pudding some lift as well as structure.
• Chocolate chips – the triple chocolate part of the recipe comes from white, milk and dark chocolate.
• Sugar – Regular, granulated sugar.
• Salt – I used fine sea salt.
• Vanilla – pure extract, please, if possible.
• Raw sugar – Provides a bit of texture (and sparkle) on top.

Triple Chocolate Bread Pudding

I always have half-empty bags of chocolate chips in the pantry. Not enough for a batch of cookies, but more than a handful. This is a great way to use up those little bits and tidy up.

You can use whatever chocolate chips you have, you could also add in a handful of dried fruit, like raisins or dried cranberries.

Make sure that you spread them evenly throughout the bread pudding – you’ll want a little chocolate in every bite!

How to make bread pudding

This bread pudding with crème anglaise is a really easy dessert, and it can be made ahead of time.

First, cube the brioche bread and place it into a buttered baking dish with the chocolate chips. Then mix up the custard and pour it over the bread.

I like to let the bread soak for about 30 minutes before baking – leave it on the counter, covered, it will be fine. Before sliding it into the oven, dot the top with a couple of tablespoons of diced butter.

Finally, sprinkle the top of your triple chocolate bread pudding with a few tablespoons of raw sugar for a bit of texture, then bake for 30 – 40 minutes.

How to make crème anglaise

Watch my web story to see me making this sauce from start to finish.

This is an easy sauce with a fancy name, here’s how you make it:

1. Scrape out half of a vanilla bean. Pour cream into a small sauce pot and add vanilla bean seeds and the scraped out pod.
2. Heat it over moderate heat until steaming and it just barely comes to a simmer.
3. Whisk egg yolks with sugar in a small bowl, then slowly drizzle in warm milk while whisking constantly.
4. Return egg and milk mixture to the sauce pot and heat over medium low heat until thickened.
5. Strain through fine mesh strainer set inside chilled bowl.

The color of your crème anglaise will depend on your egg yolks. The eggs I use have deep yellow/orange yolks, and this makes my sauce darker. I’ve used eggs with paler yolks and this yields an almost white sauce.

What do I need to make this recipe?

For this chocolate chip brioche bread pudding, you’ll need the following:

• I used this 13 x 9 baking dish with handles – the handles made it much easier to lift out of the oven.
• Glass mixing bowls that nest inside each other are perfect when making the creme anglaise.
• Small balloon whisk for whisking custard and crème anglaise.

Make ahead options

You can make triple chocolate bread pudding a day ahead and warm in the oven, covered for about 30 minutes, before serving. The crème anglaise can also be made a day ahead and refrigerated in an airtight container.

More chocolate desserts

• Chocolate mint biscotti
• No bake chocolate cheesecake
• Chocolate buttermilk Bundt cake recipe

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Originally published 4/14/12, most recent update 1/20/22.