Easy and delicious blueberry lemon bread pudding, the uses lemon curd as both a topping and a flavouring for the custard. Can be made ahead and refrigerated, too!
Why you’ll love this blueberry lemon bread pudding
Bread pudding is one of the easiest, prettiest and tastiest dishes, that is at home for breakfast, brunch or dessert! It is also always a great way to use slightly stale bread.
This one features blueberries and lemon curd, which is always a winning flavour combination. The lemon curd is used both to flavour the custard a bit and is dolloped on top. You can use store-bought lemon curd or I’ve linked up my favourite, easy homemade lemon curd recipe in the Recipe Card.
I love that I can make this bread pudding the night before, refrigerate overnight, then just quickly top and bake the next morning.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Lemon Curd – you can use store-bought lemon curd or make your own! I have an easy whole egg lemon curd recipe that I love and highly recommended for this recipe.
Blueberries – you can use fresh or frozen blueberries for this recipe. If frozen, you can use from frozen. No need to thaw.
Milk and Cream – you can adjust the ratio of cream to milk, omit the heavy cream or just use milk. The cream adds richness to the pudding, but milk works just as well. Just be sure the total amount of liquid is the same, whatever types or ratio of milk and cream you use.
Eggs – eggs are what makes the “custard” that is typical of classic bread pudding. There really isn’t a suitable substitute that I’m aware of.
Step-by-Step Photos
- Cut bread into slices or cubes and arrange in baking dish.
- In a large measuring cup in the microwave or in a medium saucepan, heat the milk and sugar just until warmed and the sugar melts.
- Add the butter and stir until the butter is melted. Set aside to cool to almost room temperature.
- Whisk together the eggs and vanilla in a small bowl. Stir in the lemon curd.
- When milk is cooled, add the egg mixture to the milk mixture and whisk to combine well.
- Pour milk mixture over bread and allow to stand at least 30 minutes, but ideally 1 hour (or alternately, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight).
- Right before baking, add dollops of lemon curd randomly on top and scatter with blueberries.
- Bake and enjoy!
Cook’s Notes
- You can cut bread into slices or into large cubes, as you like.
- Be sure to use day old or older bread, to avoid a mushy bread pudding.
- You could also make this bread pudding with croissants. For croissants, ensure that they are not super fresh and you may wish to cut into smaller pieces if the croissants are large.
- I like to make my bread puddings with a bit of exposed bread at the top, that sits above the custard level and becomes nice and crunchy. It pairs nicely with the softer bread at the bottom. That said, you can arrange your bread slices or cubes so that they are all submerged in the custard, if you prefer.
Making ahead, storing and freezing
You can make this bread pudding up to 12 hours ahead. Don’t top with the blueberries and lemon curd until right before baking.
Store left-over bread pudding in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.
I’ve found that bread pudding freezes surprisingly well. Defrost in the refrigerator and re-warm in the microwave or lightly covered with foil in the 350F oven until warmed.
Get the Recipe: Blueberry Lemon Bread Pudding
Ingredients
- 1 loaf French or Italian bread, day-old
Custard:
- 4 large eggs
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
- 2 Tablespoons lemon curd, store-bought or homemade *See Notes for link to my lemon curd recipe
- 3 cups whole milk, 3% b.f
- 1/3 cup white granulated sugar
- 3 Tablespoons butter
- Pinch salt, if you used unsalted butter
For topping before baking:
- 8 oz. fresh or frozen blueberries, see tip below
- 1/3 cup lemon curd, to dollop on top
For garnish after baking:
- icing sugar, to serve (optional)
- lemon slices
- Rosemary or mint leaves
Instructions
- If baking right away, preheat oven to 350F (regular bake/not fan-assisted).
- Cut the bread into slices or cubes and place into baking dish, roughly 9x13 oval. Set aside
- In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the lemon curd. Set aside.
- In a large measuring cup in the microwave or in a medium saucepan on the stove-top, heat the milk and sugar just until warmed and the sugar has melted. Add the butter and stir until the butter melts. Allow to cool to almost room temperature.
- Once milk mixture has cooled, add the egg mixture and whisk to combine well. (Milk must be cooled or the eggs will cook!)
- Pour milk/egg mixture over-top of the bread in the dish, filling as much as possible (it might not all fit at first. Reserve the extra to add later, if needed). Allow to stand at least 30 minutes, but ideally 1 hour, then top up with additional custard, as needed. At this point, you can cover and refrigerate, up to 12 hours or proceed to bake right away.
- When ready to bake, dollop the lemon curd for the topping in a couple of teaspoon dollops randomly on top, then nestle the fresh blueberries in between the bread slices, as well.
- Bake in preheated oven for 35-45 minutes, or until the top is golden and the custard is set. Allow to stand for 10 minutes, then dust with icing sugar and garnish with lemon slices, if desired.
Notes
More Bread Pudding Recipes to Love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
I made this today! The flavor was delicious, but my texture of the pudding was too wet (I probably did not put enough bread in…). Do you know how much bread I should put in, in terms of weight? If so, that would be great, since I do want to make it again with more bread, since it does taste like a classic, springtime brunch or dessert!
By the way, I did make your homemade lemon curd for this recipe. It was amazing!
Hi Marlena, the amount of bread will depend on the size of your baking dish. Here’s a couple of tips though. I buy a big loaf of day old bread and slice it up. If it doesn’t seem stale enough, I will let it sit sliced on the counter for a couple of hours to dry it out more. You can even lightly toast the bread on a baking sheet in the oven if you like. Then I will put the slices into the pan, filling it until the slices are snug together, but not squished. I use a lower-sided pan, so that the sliced actually extend over the top of the pan by an inch or a bit more at the highest points. When I add the custard, it will only come about 1/2-2/3 of the way up the bread slices, leaving the top of the bread exposed. So if your dish is deeper, just add the custard until you reach that level. Dry bread (and maybe more bread) and only filling up the 1/2-2/3 of the height of the bread should help :)
Thank you for your reply (sorry it took so long!) I am going to add more bread and see how it turns out. Thank you for the tips.
I was wondering what is meant by “melting sugar” in this context, and how will we know that the sugar is melted when the milk is warmed? I’m assuming that the milk is supposed to be scalded, in that it’s ready when little wisps of steam start to come off of it. Also, from a chemistry standpoint, what is the point of this step in the recipe? It’s just that this is the first time I’ve seen it in a bread pudding recipe (warming up the milk and melting sugar in it).
Hi Marlena, it’s really just making sure that the sugar melts, as it won’t melt well in cold milk and can sometimes sink to the bottom as it doesn’t incorporate fully with the milk.
Blueberry Lemon is one of my all time favorite flavor combination Jennifer. This is a fabulous recipe for Easter brunch and I’m also thinking ahead to Mother’s Day too!
Thanks Mary Ann and yes, would be perfect for Mother’s Day, too!