Milk Stout Chocolate Bread Pudding

The Ingredients & Kitchen Tools You'll Need

• Bread. The best bread for bread pudding is challah or brioche. Both are blissfully porous, rich and sweet and lend themselves perfectly to the scrumptious end purpose. Panettone or even sweet Hawaiian rolls can work great too. We used challah rolls this time around. The shape of the bread really does not matter, just be sure to have about 14 oz of it, loaf or rolls. 
• Chocolate. You can use chocolate chips like us or chocolate chunks. Choose the type of chocolate you like best. We went with milk chocolate this time around because we used milk stout instead of milk. A dreamy substitution.
• Custard. To make it you will need:
  • eggs, sugar, heavy cream, butter, vanilla and stout (or chocolate milk or whole milk plus 2 tablespoons of cocoa). See the section below to understand what stout to use.
• Equipment wise you will need a serrated knife to cut the bread, a whisk and a bowl to mix the custard and a 9 x 13 inch baking dish (or similarly sized oval or round dish). Alternatively, you can use ramekins - the quantity of this recipe will fill ten 1 cup dishes (you will need to bake for less time).

What Type of Stout to Use?

Our first and foremost choice is milk stout. Milk stouts are very sweet, owing to the addition of lactose which is not a fermentable sugar. They also have a lovely chocolaty character and taste like a liquid dessert.

You can also consider Guinness Nitro which is suave, with a creamy texture and has slight coffee notes in addition to the chocolaty nuances.

Chocolate stouts, coffee stouts, caramel stouts, porters (especially end flavor enhanced ones such as vanilla porter, chocolate porter etc.) also work perfectly with this recipe.

Learn more about Stout vs Porter.

How to Make Bread Pudding with Chocolate

Making a chocolate bread pudding entails exactly the same steps as does making a traditional custard bread pudding.

A rich, sweet custard is mixed and poured over cubed, dry sweet bread placed in a buttered baking dish. The ensemble is given some time for the bread to soak up the liquid and then baked until it puffs up, the custard sets and the bread bits on top get nice and toasty.

Whereas raisins, dates, nuts etc. are typically added to classic bread pudding in this case chocolate is added. 

Step 1. Prepare the bread - cut it into approximately 1 inch cubes and if it is still soft, place it in a bowl or colander, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let it sit for a few hours or overnight to dry out.

TIP: If you don't have the time to do that you can spread the bread cubes over a baking pan and dry them in the oven for a few minutes (on the lowest setting). Be sure not to toast them, just dry them out.

If you are using a few days old challah or brioche you can skip the above. You simply want to make sure that the bread is dry enough to fully absorb the custard and not become soggy. 

Step 2. Make the custard. Beat the eggs first then add the sugar and whisk so it gets nicely absorbed. Add the vanilla extract, the stout, whisk, and finally add the heavy cream while continuing to whisk. 

Step 3. Place the bread cubes in a generously buttered baking dish, add chocolate chips or chunks and pour the custard over them. 

Then let the mixture sit. Allow at least 20 minutes. We usually wait 30 to 40, depending on how dry the bread cubes were. 

Generally, the longer the bread has to absorb the custard the better the end result. 

Step 4. Bake. You will notice the bread pudding puff up quite a bit while in the oven, as if it is trying to leave the baking dish.

This is a welcome visual and means that the custard is baking fully and was well absorbed by the bread.

TIP: If you place your baking dish onto a baking sheet it makes handling the dish in an out of the oven much easier, especially after the bread pudding has risen.

Once a table knife inserted in the center of the baking dish comes out clean and the bread bits on top look toasted take the chocolate bread pudding out and allow it to cool off a bit.

Perhaps grate a bit of extra chocolate on top. Why not? 

Serving Suggestions

We prefer to serve the warm pudding with a scoop of ice cream and both of us wholeheartedly recommend salted caramel as the lead flavor. It elevates the already decadent chocolate bread pudding to the level of ridiculously indulgent. Chocolate and caramel, warm and ice cold.

Then of course there are all kinds of bread pudding sauces out there... 

A scoop of vanilla yogurt makes for a great contrast in flavors, even good creamy plain yogurt. 

Most importantly - be sure there are plenty of people to serve a bowl of rich, luxurious pudding to. You really do not want to end up with more than one serving yourself - you will feel tempted to eat it all. 

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