Gluten-Free Southern Bread Pudding {Dairy-Free Option}
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Gluten-free bread pudding is an easy baked dessert. Gluten-free bread and raisins baked in an egg custard topped with a homemade caramel sauce.
Disclosure: This recipe is sponsored by Schär. The opinions are my own.
Gluten-Free Bread Pudding
Bread pudding is a classic, old fashioned dessert that is super easy to make and uses simple ingredients. Southern bread pudding is made with cubed bread tossed in a simple custard with raisins and baked until golden.
This easy dessert is often served with a bread pudding sauce. A lot of old fashioned bread pudding recipes are topped with a bourbon or rum sauce, but my recipe is family-friendly. I included a homemade caramel sauce that is the perfect kid-friendly sauce!
Gluten-Free Bread
Since the bread is the base of this recipe, it’s really important to use a great gluten-free bread! Schär is my family’s favorite brand of gluten-free bread. It’s also dairy-free!
I love both the flavor and soft texture of Schär’s Artisan Baker White Gluten-Free Bread. It is also shelf-stable and vacuumed sealed and bagged for freshness. You can use their store locator to find a store that carries them near you.
If you prefer to bake your own bread, I have recipes for both oven-baked gluten-free bread and bread machine bread for you!
How To Make Gluten-Free Bread Pudding
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8 x 8-inch baking dish with gluten-free cooking spray.
- Place raisins in a small bowl of hot water to soak for 10 minutes, drain.
- Cut the bread into 1″ pieces and place them on a baking sheet. (photo 1)
- Bake for 5 minutes to toast the bread. (photo 2)
- In a medium bowl or large glass measuring cup, whisk together eggs, brown sugar, sugar, pure vanilla extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- Melt butter in a small bowl and allow to cool a little. Add the milk and the butter to the egg mixture and stir until combined. (photo 4)
- Place half of the bread cubes into the greased baking dish. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of the raisins over the cubes. Place the rest of the bread cubes into the baking dish. Sprinkle the rest of the raisins over the bread cubes.
- Pour the egg mixture over the bread and raisins. Gentle stir to make sure all the bread has been coated with the egg mixture. (photo 4)
- Bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes, then place a sheet of aluminum foil over the top of the baking dish and cook for an additional 20 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean and the edges are brown. (photo 5)
- Serve warm or room temperature. Drizzle slices with caramel sauce. Enjoy!
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Reheat leftovers in the microwave or oven.
How To Make Caramel Sauce
- In a small saucepan, combine the butter, brown sugar and milk and cook over medium heat bringing to a low boil, stirring occasionally. (photo 1)
- Lower heat and allow to boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. (photo 2)
- Remove from the heat and stir in pure vanilla extract. (photo 3)
- Drizzle caramel sauce over a slice of the bread pudding.
Do I Have To Use Raisins In The Bread Pudding?
If you are not a big fan of raisins, you can easily substitute chopped nuts, like pecans.
Can I Make The Bread Pudding Ahead Of Time?
You sure can! Prepare as directed, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to bake it. When you are ready to bake the bread pudding, just leave out on the counter while your oven pre-heats, then bake as directed.
Can I Freeze The Bread Pudding?
Bread pudding is easy to freeze. Just place in a freezer-safe the container. The bread pudding can be frozen up to three months. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight before reheating the bread pudding.
Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Bread Pudding
I have also included a dairy-free option for the gluten-free bread pudding recipe. My husband, my youngest son, and I are all dairy-free. So I always try and have a dairy-free option for my recipes.
My recipe for dairy-free and the gluten-free bread pudding was made with Schär’s Artisan Baker White Gluten-Free Bread, Smart Balance butter, and almond milk.
Homemade Bread pudding is the ultimate comfort food dessert. It’s made with simple ingredients you probably already have on hand.
Gluten-free bread pudding is an easy dessert to make and is always a crowd-pleaser!
More Gluten-Free Dessert Recipes To Try!
- Gluten-Free Mini Cheesecakes
- Cinnamon Roll Cake {Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Option}
- Gluten-Free Apple Crisp {Dairy-Free Option}
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Gluten-Free Southern Bread Pudding {Dairy-Free Option}
Ingredients
- 6 cups cubed Schär gluten-free bread, toasted
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 cup raisins, soaked and drained
- 1 3/4 cups milk, dairy-free use almond, coconut, or cashew milk
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, dairy-free use Smart Balance butter
Caramel Sauce
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, dairy-free use Smart Balance butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup milk, dairy-free use almond, coconut, or cashew milk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt, (just a pinch)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8x8-inch baking dish with gluten-free cooking spray.
- Place raisins in a small bowl of hot water to soak for 10 minutes, drain.
- Cut the bread into 1″ pieces and place them on a baking sheet. Bake for 5-10 minutes to toast the bread.
- In a medium bowl or large glass measuring cup whisk together eggs, brown sugar, sugar, pure vanilla extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- Melt butter in a small bowl and allow to cool a little. Add the milk and the butter to the egg mixture and stir until combined.
- Place half of the toasted bread cubes into the greased baking dish. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of the raisins over the cubes. Place the rest of the bread cubes into the baking dish. Sprinkle the rest of the raisins over the bread cubes.
- Pour the egg mixture over the bread and raisins. Gentle stir to make sure all the bread has been coated with the egg mixture.
- Bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes, then place a sheet of aluminum foil over the top of the baking dish and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean and the edges are brown.
- Serve warm or room temperature. Drizzle slices with caramel sauce. Enjoy!
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Reheat leftovers in the microwave or oven.
Caramel Sauce
- In a small saucepan combine the butter, brown sugar and milk and cook over medium heat bringing to a low boil, stirring occasionally.
- Lower heat and allow to boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Remove from the heat and stir in pure vanilla extract.
- Drizzle caramel sauce over a slice of the bread pudding.
Notes
- For the dairy-free option I used Schär gluten-free bread, Smart Balance butter and almond milk.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
- Reheat leftovers in the microwave or oven.
- Mama says, "Always check your lables!"
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I made this and it was delicious. I can’t wait to make it for my grandmas 90th birthday coming up. She always talks about her love of bread pudding but since her celiac diagnosis she hasn’t been able to enjoy any. I can’t wait to surprise her. Only thing I’m going to change is to add a little bourbon to the Carmel sauce the way her mother used to make it. Thanks for the recipe!
Very good but the bread pudding needs a pinch of salt. This would probably depend on the gf bread you use tho.
I’ll be honest, I was a little bit tipsy when I made this. But I really wanted some bread pudding! Unfortunately I didn’t have some of the ingredients on hand. I only had two eggs, not 3. I didn’t have any brown sugar so I just did a full cup of regular sugar. I decided to use Canyon Bakehouse gluten free English muffins since they were already kind of firm. I didn’t have any raisins so I used some chocolate chips and instead of milk I used Chocolate Almond milk (which I accidentally mixed in a step early). I didn’t want to make a caramel drizzle so instead I mixed some melted butter with some melted chocolate peanut butter to drizzle on top. All in all it still turned out pretty good! I can’t wait to try making it again when I have all of the ingredients!
I made this with leftover irish soda bread with cranberries. I didn’t do the caramel sauce because of the cranberries. I really enjoyed it, so yummy.
Buttery and warm comfort food! We had this Christmas morning and loved it!
I would like to use oatmeal. You do not mention it as an option. What are your thoughts?
Hi Francie! For this recipe, you’ll definitely need to use a gluten-free bread because it’s the base of the recipe. If you’re looking for an oatmeal-based recipe, check out my baked oatmeal cups recipe!
I used Canyon Bakehouse Hawaiian Sweet bread (toasted 1/2 loaf), a few pieces of Schar GF white, 1 sliced banana instead of raisins, and unsweet cashew milk. This is by far the best bread pudding recipe that I have tried. The carmel sauce does need a thickener and I needed more liquid to cover the bread, but this is getting made again!
I had a couple loaves of bread that didn’t bake right, so I cubed them up and tried this recipe. I am not disappointed. It was very easy to make and turned out delicious. I do agree that is it a bit sweet (but I enjoy that), so if you don’t like that, maybe cut the sugar a bit. You could also just skip the caramel sauce, as that’s where I found most of the sweetness.
This doesn’t come out quite as custardy as it would using milk, but still VERY good. I thought that a full cup of sugar seemed like a lot (and I say that as someone with a sweet tooth). I cut the sugar back to about 3/4 cup and it was still very sweet. If I made this again I’d probably cut back to 1/2 – 1/3 cup total. I used the raisins and threw in one small peeled, chopped apple. I used a 6″x6″ baking dish and found that I needed to add another 10 minutes to the bake because it still looked a bit soupy at 30 min. 40 min was perfect.