Happy Lundi Gras, y’all! Mardi Gras brings back fond memories of parades with my family, getting a week off of school (yep – south Louisiana kind of shuts down for the big MG!), and of course – the multitude of king cakes to consume for 2 months. 🙂
We really don’t go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras anymore – I think parades lost their luster for me after I graduated from college. However, that could change when we have kids someday – who knows!
When it comes to king cakes, I feel like there’s so many versions nowadays – the nostalgic ones from childhood and the newer bakeries trying to break the barrier on what should be considered a king cake. It’s a big industry, for sure – my favorite is the nostalgic type (Randazzo’s and Haydel’s in the New Orleans area are up there for me – Ambrosia Bakery in Baton Rouge is also pretty darn good)! I finally tried the social media sensation that is Dong Phuong’s king cake this past week, and it was pretty good! Theirs is more of a flaky croissant-type dough with an icing that won’t hurt your teeth (which I also can appreciate). However, for two people, it was a LOT of king cake – so here we are. 3/4 of a king cake left, and I’m not trashing it! It’s time for a bread pudding, y’all!
This recipe is SO easy – take that leftover king cake, cube it up, mix a quick custard – BOOM! I made a delicious cold brew coffee glaze to drizzle over the top, but if there’s no coffee drinkers in your home – you can enjoy it just as it is! It’s sweet enough with the king cake base!
King Cake Bread Pudding with Coffee Glaze
Source: mildly adapted from Fake Ginger
Ingredients:
- 1 medium king cake (cut into cubes)
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 1/2 cups milk (I used reduced fat)
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2 tbsp. cold brew coffee concentrate
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9×13 baking pan by spraying it with non-stick baking spray and spreading it evenly in the dish.
- Place the king cake cubes in your baking pan, spreading the cubes out as evenly as possible. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, heavy cream, milk, granulated sugar, vanilla extract and salt, until the mixture is homogenous. Pour the mixture over the king cake cubes in the pan, and lightly mix the king cake and custard, until all of the king cake has soaked up the custard.
- Bake the bread pudding for 30 minutes, covered with foil. Remove the foil, and bake the bread pudding for another 15-20 minutes, until the custard is set. While the bread pudding is baking, make the coffee glaze! Place the 1 cup of confectioners sugar and 2 tbsp. of cold brew coffee concentrate in a small bowl & whisk together.
- Enjoy this dessert warm with or without coffee glaze on top!
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