Pumpkin Bread Pudding

This Pumpkin Bread Pudding is a great fall weekend breakfast or easy dessert. Made with buttery challah bread, pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice, it’s delicious, comforting, and cozy. Great for chilly weather!

I have a love-hate relationship with pumpkin. On one hand I love cooking with it, adding pureed pumpkin to stews, meatloaves, cakes, waffles.

On the other hand I don’t particularly like the taste of pumpkin.

I love using it for colour and texture. I love adding it for extra fibre and nutrition. I use it to add some bulk to my stuffed pepper filling and moisture to cobblers.

But give me a spoonful of pumpkin puree and I will politely decline.

My Pumpkin Bread Pudding (made into mini individual hand form) doesn’t really taste like pumpkin but it tastes like pumpkin pie. It’s soft and fluffy and wonderfully spiced.

What bread to use to make Pumpkin Bread Pudding

I love using challah for bread puddings and stratas. It adds a nice buttery and rich flavour to the dish.

If you can’t find challah at your local supermarket or bakery then you can easily use brioche and if it’s also unavailable then regular Italian loaf would work also.

Do you need to prep Pumpkin Bread Pudding a night before?

Unlike a big family size strata, this mini Pumpkin Bread Pudding doesn’t need to be made a night before. You can easily mix everything in the morning and bake right away.

However, if you’d like to serve it for brunch without any fuss then by all means prepare the egg mixture and bread in the evening, refrigerate, and then bake in the morning.

You may need to add a couple extra minutes of baking time if the mixture is from the fridge. You can also double the recipe to serve more people.

How do you make Pumpkin Bread Pudding?

Pumpkin Bread Pudding is really easy to make. It’s almost like making french toast except you don’t have to pan fry each slice of bread.

Just mix a couple of eggs, milk, pumpkin, a little bit of brown sugar (which is optional by the way), pumpkin pie spice, and pour the mixture over cubed challah.

Bake in a muffin tin until golden brown and puffed. I like serving it with dark maple syrup.