Old Fashioned Bread Pudding Recipe

This old fashioned bread pudding recipe is sweetly spiced and filled with raisins, coconut, and tasty buttermilk biscuits. Talk about a bowl of honest-to-goodness comfort!

Bread pudding to me is like brownies, I’ve never met one that I didn’t like. Having said that, though, if you’ve never had a good, old fashioned bread pudding recipe that’s made with buttermilk biscuits, you’ve never had a real, honest-to-goodness old fashioned bread pudding. I just had to pause in my typing and close my eyes for a moment of silence to pray for those who have never had this. It’s that good. So good that I worry for your souls because I want you to get to heaven – for surely bread pudding will be served there.

This dessert recipe is the spitting image of the bread pudding they used to serve at Cracker Barrel in the old days. Like its counterpart, my traditional bread pudding is overflowing with delicious ingredients, like buttermilk biscuits, sweetened coconut flakes, raisins, and cinnamon. Together, they make a bread pudding that’s so flavorful and delicious!

Now, while most bread pudding recipes use stale bread, we’re working with buttermilk biscuits (it’s the Southern way, of course). You’re going to have to make them. I’ll share some recipes with you in a minute that will give you the amount you need for the dish and you’ll still have a few to eat to keep your strength up while we make the rest of the dish.

Recipe Ingredients

• Biscuits
• Sweetened flaked coconut
• Raisins
• Milk
• Eggs
• Sugar
• Salt
• Cinnamon
• Vanilla

Biscuit Recipes

Take a moment, if you will, to join me in light and fluffy biscuit appreciation. If you’re wearing a hat, now is one of those times where you take it off and hold it over your heart. These are the three-ingredient biscuits. I have other biscuit recipes, too, because biscuits are kinda like shoes to a Southern woman, different occasions call for different ones. You can see my tender buttermilk biscuits here and my hoe cake recipe is here, which is basically a big old giant biscuit. No, my hoe cake is not made with cornmeal. Some are and that’s fine. Mine isn’t and that’s fine, too. 

How to Make My Old Fashioned Bread Pudding Recipe

Crumble about 1/3 of your biscuits into an ovenproof bowl or baking dish.

Top with half of your coconut. 

Unless you are a coconut hater.

In that case, wave a little air over it in this part just to say you did something and then skip to the next step.

Top with half of your raisins.

1/3 of your crumbled biscuits. 

Then remaining coconut and remaining raisins…

And the rest of the biscuits.

Now, beat together your eggs, milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla. 

Oh, wait! Save 2 tablespoons of sugar but add all of the rest.

Pour the milk mixture over everything in your bowl/baking dish. 

Sprinkle two tablespoons of sugar over the top. 

Bake at 350 for one hour, or until lightly browned on top. 

Serve warm. Mama likes hers with a good quality scoop of vanilla ice cream but I like mine on its own. 

Either way you go, this old fashioned bread pudding is like a little bit of heaven in a bowl.

Storage

• In even better news, leftover bread pudding will last in an airtight container in your fridge for up to 5 days.
• You can also freeze individual portions in freezer-safe containers for up to three months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and then reheat in the microwave.

Recipe Notes

• To all the coconut haters:  I know right now you are sitting there recoiling at this ingredient being featured in the recipe. Your conviction against this poor little seed (or large, such as it may be) has me almost second-guessing my lifelong friendly relationship with it – almost. I hear ya each time I post so I wanted to meet y’all out at the gate on this one and tell ya that yes, you can leave the coconut out. No, you don’t have to substitute anything for it. Just pretend it doesn’t even exist and your bread pudding will still be just fine. And just in case you feel a bit offended by me liking coconut in the face of your (sometimes extreme) dislike of it, rest easy, sister/brother. There’s room for all of us at this table. And I’ll just keep the coconut down on my end.
• Serve your pudding for dessert with a drizzle of maple syrup or caramel sauce, a dollop of whipped cream, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
• You could also use non-dairy milk in this pudding recipe.
• Here are some variations you can try with this old fashioned bread pudding recipe too:
  • Substitute the raisins for dried cranberries.
  • Spice it up and add some favorite fall spices, like ground cloves, ginger, and nutmeg, along with the cinnamon already included in this recipe.
  • For a more dessert-style bread pudding, substitute the raisins for mini chocolate chips.
  • Sprinkle some chopped walnuts on top along with the sugar.
• Speaking of… you could substitute the white sugar you sprinkle on top for dark or light brown sugar for a more caramelized topping.

Here are more fabulous pudding recipes:

Frozen Banana Pudding Cups

How To Make Rice Pudding Southern-Style by Mama Reed

Easy Homemade Banana Pudding with Meringue Topping

Vanilla Wafer Pudding Recipe With Pineapple

Chocolate Vanilla Wafer Pudding

Banana Bread Pudding Sundae