raspberry & chocolate croissant pudding

Raspberry and chocolate croissant bread pudding recipe

Bake this easy raspberry and chocolate croissant bread pudding recipe, an alternative to bread and butter pudding. It’s a great way to use up going stale pastries.

I’m all for quick and easy desserts. Mainly because I only make puddings at the weekend. If I’m already slaving in the kitchen making a main course, I don’t want to spend ages making pudding too. In an ideal world I’ll make one pudding for Saturday, and there’ll be enough for Sunday too. Unfortunately if it goes down well, they’ll have seconds, and there’s rarely enough leftovers.

So I have a few last minute storecupboard standby puddings that I make when I’ve not really planned anything.

  • Nigella’s syrup pastry pudding – no idea what it’s called, but it’s only 3 ingredients (ready made pastry, golden syrup and milk), so it’s really easy and fast to make. It tastes a bit toffee like in flavour, and there’s never any moans here.
  • Nigella’s Chocolate and pear pudding – tinned pears, and a gooey chocolate sponge. Delicious
  • Microwave ‘steamed’ jam pudding (or syrup if the OH’s eating it).
  • Magic saucing puddings
raspberry & chocolate croissant pudding

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We usually have pastries in the house too. I love the Jusrol tubes* that you can bake yourself, but having croissants or pain au chocolat in the bread box means there’s always something quick to eat for breakfast, pudding during the week, or a snack for N after school. 

Sometimes the packaging is left gaping open though, and that means they go stale fast. It drives me nuts, but it does means they can be used to make an alternative bread and butter pudding. Instead of bread, just replace it with stale pastries, top with the custard, and fruit of choice, then bake.  No butter needed, although you can add it if you want. I find the puff pastry tends to have enough butter in to make it moist, especially if you soak it in the custard before cooking anyway.

Traditionally bread and butter pudding uses dried fruit, but I’m not a fan, and prefer fresh or tinned fruit. It makes the pudding a bit more healthy getting in a fruit portion if you add enough.

I find you don’t need sugar adding to the pudding either – ready made custard is sweet enough.  If you don’t have fresh/chilled ready made custard you can make up instant custard (it worked fine when I made it), or from custard powder. Or of course, you can make custard from scratch with milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla extract.

What’s great about these puddings is how you can alter the flavours depending on the season or taste.

I decided this time to finish off the jar of Nutella that had been in the larder taunting me while I’m on my diet!.  And adding fresh raspberries.  I’d originally spotted a version using raspberry jam donuts for the base, but I didn’t have those and the OH prefers strawberry jam, but I don’t think that’s as good in hot desserts as raspberries. Plus chocolate and raspberry goes so well together.

raspberry and chocolate croissant pudding

If you don’t have nutella, you can tweak by grating over chocolate, or sprinkling over chocolate chips.  As for the chocolate you choose, dark, milk or white will all work well with this recipe.

It’s such a simple method to make it, and only takes around 35 minutes.

Raspberry and chocolate croissant bread pudding recipe

Equipment

You need an ovenproof baking dish. Any type will work, I use a pyrex dish*.

Instructions

croissants and chocolate spread

Slice the croissants in half and spread in Nutella or any other chocolate spread, before placing the croissants in a baking dish.  I used 4 croissants and broke them in half to make them fill the dish better.

croissants with nutella in a baking dish

Drop in most of the raspberries.

croissants and raspberries with nutella jar and juge of custard

Pour over the custard – mixing it with a little milk first if it’s a really thick custard, then chill to soak the pastries for 15 to 30 minutes.

pouring custard over croissants and raspberries

Sprinkle over a few more raspberries.

custard covered croissants and raspberries

Then bake for 25 minutes until the custard’s set and it’s lightly browned on top.  

raspberry and chocolate croissant bread pudding

Serve with double cream or ice cream depending on preference.

My recipe serves 3 (although it was demolished between the 2 hungry sweet toothed males in the house). You can easily increase the ingredients as required for more people. Just check the cooking time as it will take a bit longer to cook if it’s a larger dish.  It won’t ruin if it’s kept warm for a bit.

croissant bread pudding
This was before N had even got to it. Next time I’ll need to make a bigger pudding

Why not try some of these alternative variations of this delicious and easy dessert.  Just cut up the fruit to smaller pieces, add any sauce that goes with it to add a swirl of colour and flavour.

Alternative croissant pudding variations

  • Pear and chocolate – tinned pears are fine, sprinkle over chocolate chips
  • Peach – tinned or fresh peaches, serve with plain or vanilla yoghurt.
  • Blueberry and lemon – use lemon curd to swirl into the custard, or spread inside the pastries
  • Banana and butterscotch pieces
  • Orange and chocolate – tinned mandarins are fine if you can’t be bothered to peel, remove the pith and segment fresh oranges.
  • Apple and cinnamon – if you use cooking apples make sure to peel, dice and soften them in a pan on the hob first (you might want to add a bit of sugar too), otherwise dessert applea can just be peeled and diced, then added straight in.
  • Mixed berries – why not use frozen berries for a mixed berry flavour. Just defrost first in a colander before adding to the pastries. You might need a bit of sugar sprinkled over in case some of the fruit is tart.
  • Jam – just spread your preferred jam flavour of choice on the croissants
  • Mincemeat – use up what’s left from your Christmas baking.

If you don’t have croissants to hand, you can also use brioche, pain au chocolat, cinnamon swirls, pain au raisin or plain white bread. Just leave whole, or slice, and use instead of croissants.  (With bread, I’d recommend spreading each slice with butter and cutting in 2 half to make it easier to add to the baking dish).

Raspberry and chocolate croissant bread pudding

This easy pastry pudding is reminiscent of bread and butter pudding, made fast and easy with ready made custard,

Course Dessert
Keyword dessert, pastry, pudding
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 3 or 2 hungry people
Author Emma

Ingredients

  • 4 croissants
  • 400 g custard (I used 1 made up sachet of instant Birds custard, you can use fresh or tinned custard too
  • 150 g fresh raspberries
  • 3 tbsp Nutella (or as required)
  • 1 tbsp full fat milk optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180C

  2. Butter a baking dish

  3. Slice the croissants in half, spread nutella inside the them, then place in the dish

  4. Sprinkle over most of the raspberries

  5. If your custard is really thick, add a tablespoon of milk and stir to thin it out a little. Pour the custard over the pastries

  6. Dot the remaining raspberries over

  7. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the custard has set and the top of the croissants are lightly browned

Recipe Notes

You can increase the volume of ingredients to feed more people, just bake for a little longer as it might take longer to set.

What other variations would you like to try?

Like this post, try these.

chocolate blancmange
flapjack flavours
chocolate tiffin
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