Depression Bread Pudding
I want to preface this recipe by saying that I’ve found bread pudding tends to be rather polarizing – folks either love it or hate it. That having been said, if you are not a bread pudding fan, you will not be thrilled with this recipe. If you are a bread pudding fan, I am your new best friend.
This is one of those classic “make do” recipes. At some point, there was this lady who was trying to make ends meet and needed to use up some leftover bread buns in addition to feeding her family. She whipped this up and a classic was born. I also call this “depression food” as it was just the type of dish which was born out of the necessity of hard times.
There are tons of bread pudding recipes out there. Some use fancy breads with names I can’t pronounce, some use leftover buttermilk biscuits. Regardless of the ingredients, I always love the outcome of any bread pudding.
I particularly like this recipe because I find myself with leftover buns from time to time and hate for them to go to waste. I have a rule, food never goes to waste if I can help it. This is well known throughout my family and sometimes has comical results.
My brother is a caterer (and national grand champion winner at the Jack Daniels BBQ Cookoff) and not too long ago he had purchased hamburger buns for a BBQ for three hundred. When he arrived, someone had actually donated the buns so all he had purchased were not used. “Do you want some hamburger buns?” Sure! I was greeted with four Wal mart sacks full of hamburger buns. We had some hamburgers, of course, and bread pudding as well, but there were still so many left and I was determined not to let them waste. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am actually among the first generation in the history of my family to have never gone hungry – making use of the food we have is in our blood.
So I decided to make French toast. I made my batter of eggs, milk, and cinnamon and dipped the buns in them before frying to a nice golden brown. I then flash froze them on cookie sheets before plopping them into gallon Ziploc freezer bags. Two cycles in the toaster and we had fresh French toast anytime! I was so thrilled with my discovery that I made about eight packages worth of frozen French toast (that’s sixteen pieces per package). I then called everyone bragging over my thriftiness and creativity. The next day when I got home from an errand – four more wal mart sacks of hamburger buns were hanging on my door.
Needless to say, we still have plenty of french toast.
I should also note that this recipe came from a church cookbook. Now if you aren’t from the south, let me interpret that for you. “Came from a church cookbook” automatically gives a recipe at the very least a four star rating on account of no one would serve bad food in a church – that would surely be an unforgivable sin in the bible belt.
Alrighty so here we go! Please note, I made a half recipe so what you are seeing is half of the recipe at the bottom of the page! We need two eggs, melted butter, two hamburger buns – split, cinnamon, sugar, and milk. Exact recipe is at the bottom of this page.
Place hamburger buns in baking dish and preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together all other ingredients.
Pour over hamburger buns, pressing down to make sure they get saturated.
Place in oven and cook, about twenty to thirty minutes, until browned and puffed up a bit.
Umm…you know how I said that bread pudding is a polarizing recipe? Folks either love it or they don’t – I’m in the “love it” group and therefore forgot to take a pic before I scooped myself out some!
Depression Bread Pudding
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I’m the kind that loves it. This looks great. And good job being so frugal and economical. I’m that way too – I did a huge loaf of Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day, and we only ate half the loaf before it started going hard. So I tore it up and made a bread pudding!
My husband is pretty funny about bread pudding. He always declared that the very thought of it made him gag. He’d never had any, but it just didn’t sound appealing to him at all. I consider my bread pudding a success because when I made it, he tried a little and said, surprised, “This isn’t bad!”
You know, my husband is the same way! My best friends mother says that, generally, women love bread pudding but men don’t. I wonder if there is a little truth to that for some reason. She thinks it has something to do with a natural inclination towards meat and potatoes….a testosterone thing. Hehe.
No telling.
I would have been just like you though, “I made this whole loaf of bread and there is half left!! I have to do something!!!”.
I know the whole “children starving” thing was used a lot on us as children, but it really is something I think about. Here we have all this food and there are so many who don’t. I’m fortunate to have plenty of matriarchs who knew how to put this and that together and make it a meal.
Plus, its just kind of fun to take something you might have thrown out and turn it into yumminess!
I cannot pass up bread, no matter what kind it is! I’m not in the “love it” group for bread pudding though. I don’t like custardy things (except vanilla creme brulee). But I like your recipe. My momma would like this. I’m going to see her tomorrow. I’ll make this for her.
CREME BRULEE!!!
OOOOOOOOOOOOH I love it, love it, love it! I make a sweet potato creme brulee that is so good.
I have posted my mother’s bread pudding recipe following the depression bread pudding recipe. I’ll do a tutorial on it soon!!
As always, thank you for reading my blog!
This looks great.. surely I will try.Ihave added you in my blog roll.pl do visit my blog &try some indian cuisines …wat say? http://jaisrecepieblog.blogspot.com
MyViews: Absolutely!! I love India! I saw a movie with Aishwarya Rae where she ran this store which sold nothing but spices. I’ve wanted to taste Indian food ever since. I don’t even think we have an Indian restaurant here!
You know, I’ve never even tasted curry?
Okay, soon as I get a chance, I’m nosing through your entire blog!!
I don’t think I have ever tried bread pudding before last night. I came across your blog and I love every inch of it! I made this recipe and this was a wonderful treat! Thank you for sharing this easy, yet truly delightful dish!
I am making the hobo packets tonight and I just know with you behind the recipe, it will be delicious!
Despite having a Southern father, a Yankee mother, Dutch aunts from the Caribbean, and growing up in the big city, I never even heard of bread pudding until I was a young adult (except for my Yankee grandmother, the women in our family mostly cooked everything from scratch, and even though none of them really taught me to cook, watching them over the years made it easier to teach myself).
The bread puddings I ate were torn up, usually in bigger hunks, then had some kind of sauce poured over it. Sometimes they’d have fruit and/or nuts in the pudding too. Mmmm, apple bread pudding with vanilla/cinnamon sauce {drooling!} Nuts and raisins would taste good with that too, but I think they’d bother me now.
Now I’m going to try hamburger and hotdog buns the next time I have some leftover, thanks.
OMGosh!
This recipe was soooooo what I have been looking for for years!
I read it yesterday & made it last nite!
I did reduce the sugar & milk from 1 cup to 3/4 cups. (I was making 1/2 the recipe)
I did as you do sometimes Christy… I improvised with the bread.
I don’t have a brother with loads of hamburger buns but I did have whole-wheat bread that was gonna die on me soon! So I tore it into large pieces & put it into the 8×8 pan & poured the mixture over it and it was just incredible! SOOO easy!
Thanx for bringing back my Mom’s bread pudding to me again…
Taylor35