Raspberry and chocolate croissant bread pudding recipe (2025)

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

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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.

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

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.

Drop in most of the raspberries.

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.

Sprinkle over a few more raspberries.

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

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.

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).

What other variations would you like to try?

Like this post, try these other tips for nearby days out.