This delicious and easy Hot Cross Bun Bread and Butter Pudding is a wonderfully warming Easter Dessert. It is a perfect spring dessert which can be made in advance for a yummy Easter pudding. It is a perfect way to use up any leftover hot cross buns and create a yummy Easter pudding for friends and family.
This recipe is great to serve for an Easter pudding but also works so well for a Sunday dinner dessert. What could be better than roast lamb with all the potatoes and vegetables, plus of course mint sauce. Followed by a hot squidgy hot cross bun bread and butter pudding. The ultimate spring and Easter dessert.
Top Questions
Can you freeze bread and butter pudding?
What are hot cross buns eaten with?
What is the white stuff on a hot cross bun?
Are hot cross buns a UK thing?
Why you’ll love this recipe
What I love about this easy-baked dessert is that the wonderful flavours of the hot cross bun are enhanced with the vanilla custard mix that soaks into it. It’s a delicious recipe for hot cross bun bread and butter pudding easy too!
It’s a great way to use up your leftover hot cross buns, making an Easter dessert with your old hot cross buns is perfect for ensuring you have no waste. It tastes incredible too so win-win!
A great way to make this Hot Cross Bun Pudding even more special in time for Easter is to add chocolate eggs. I have tried it with mini eggs (chocolate eggs in a sugar shell) and they worked really well. The chocolate inside was soften and squidgy.
Hot Cross Buns Bread and Butter Pudding
What I love about baking at the moment is making cakes and bakes as traybakes. This Hot Cross Bun traybake is so moreish. If you love hot cross buns and hot bakes this is a recipe for you to try.
Check out my recipe for Sweet Hot Cross Buns with Cranberry and Lime. You can also follow this recipe to make normal hot cross buns but use a mix of dried fruit. This will help it to achieve that traditional flavour.
Ingredients
For the full recipe and instructions scroll to the bottom of the page for the recipe card.
Hot Cross Buns
The star of the show in this bread and butter recipe. You can use any hot cross buns for the recipe – you can use homemade ones, supermarket ones or if you’re really lucky, find a friend who loves to bake and let them make them for you.
How to make – step by step
For the full recipe and instructions scroll to the bottom of the page for the recipe card.
To make the custard place the whole milk in a saucepan.
Add in the double cream to the milk.
Slice a vanilla pod in half, scrape out the centre and add the centre and pod to the cream and milk mix.
Place on a medium heat and stir as it comes up to a boil. Take it off the heat before it boils. Allow to cool slightly.
In a bow whisk the eggs and extra yolk with the caster sugar.
Slowly pour the warm milk and cream mixture over the eggs, stirring constantly until smooth.
Grease a large ovenproof dish. I either use melted butter and pastry brush to paint it on or use a piece of kitchen paper with some soft butter I rub over.
Slice the Hot Cross Buns into a top and bottom slice. Butter each side of the bread.
Lay the bottom slices up in the oven proof dish.
Pour half of the warm custard mix over the bottom slices of hot cross bun. (remove the vanilla pod)
Pop on the top of the hot cross buns. Dividing it up makes sure the middle of the buns get enough of the custard mix.
Pour over the remaining custard mix. Leave to soak for at about 30 mins.
Heat oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan). Bake for 35-40 mins until golden brown. Serve straight away.
Top Tips
This hot cross buns bread and butter pudding recipe is a great way to use up your leftover hot cross buns. Slightly stale hot cross buns are perfect for this easter dessert.
Freeze your hot cross buns bread and butter pudding. This way you can make the bread and butter pudding ahead of time and still serve it warm and fresh on Easter Sunday.
Try throwing fresh berries into your mixture to take your Easter dessert, I’ve tried blueberries, raspberries and even dried cranberries for a sweet and tart Easter dessert.
Serving Suggestions – What can I serve with the Hot Cross Bun Bread and Butter Pudding?
There are a lot of different things that you can serve with the hot cross bun dessert. This includes fresh fruit, ice cream, more custard and even chocolate. If you want to do some extra special try using brioche hot cross buns for the recipe. They add an extra deliciousness!
FRESH FRUIT
A great way to add some freshness to this creamy dessert is to add some fresh fruit when serving. I would recommend berries like raspberries or strawberries.
CHOCOLATE
IF you want to make this extra special and super sweet add chocolate chips! It works with dark chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. For this recipe I would suggest adding about 100g/ half a cup of chocolate chips. Dark chocolate worked really well. I think that would be my preferred choice.
If you forget to add the chocolate while it’s baking you can drizzle over melted chocolate when it comes out of the oven. Or if you have a chocolate sauce, like the product that is good for drizzling over ice cream, use that!
ICE CREAM, CREAM & CUSTARD
This has been controversial in my house. I think a big scoop of vanilla ice cream with this hot cross bun traybake dessert tastes incredible. Chocolate ice cream and/or caramel ice cream also works beautifully.
Custard also works but I know some people don’t like it as there is already a custard in the hot cross bun dessert. I however think why not add more. Especially a rich vanilla custard!
Cold cream works a treat. Cool cream against the hot dessert is just beautiful! I would suggest single cream but double or heavy cream works too.
Equipment
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- Medium sized oven proof dish
- saucepan
- Wooden spoon
- whisk
- Mixing bowl
Substitutions and variations
Chocolate Chips
Chocolate eggs are great to scatter throughout the hotcross bun bread and butter pudding too. Add some in the middle of the hot cross buns as well as on top. When using the chocolate Easter eggs which are hollow I would recommend crushing them up a bit. This is so you can sprinkle them around and get that tasty chocolate everywhere through the bake.
Brioche hot cross bun bread and butter pudding
Have you found and tried brioche hot cross buns? They are amazing. I love normal hot cross buns but there is something special about brioche hot cross buns. They work so well in this recipe too.
There is no need to change anything in the recipe except swap out the traditional hot cross buns for the brioche hot cross buns.
Different flavoured hot cross buns
Fresh Berries
You can find so many different flavours of hot cross buns this year in the supermarkets, I had to try the fresh berry flavours and they were incredible in this dessert. I even added some more fresh berries to the mix just before placing it in the oven.
Toffee chunks
Grab your favourite toffees and throw them into the mixture too. As the hotcross bun bread and butter pudding cooks they melt and go wonderfully gooey and sticky.
Storing / Making ahead of time options
You can make this bread and butter pudding ahead of time and freeze it. You can follow the recipe as normal and then freeze your bread and butter pudding made with hot cross buns either before or after baking. If you’re waiting to serve your Easter pudding warm after dinner I suggest freezing the mix before baking. That way you can still serve it warm from the oven. Although you’ll want to add a few more minutes to the baking time of your frozen hot cross buns bread and butter pudding.
FAQS
Can you freeze bread and butter pudding?
Another great thing about making bread and butter pudding is that it not only tastes amazing fresh from the oven but can be frozen too. You can freeze it either before it’s cooked or once it’s cooked.
I would recommend once it’s cooked as it holds together and the flavour is more intense. It can freeze for a few months. I would say 3 months max.
What are hot cross buns eaten with?
Hot cross buns are usually eaten on their own or toasted with butter. They can also be made into a bread and butter pudding or as the base for french toast.
What is the white stuff on a hot cross bun?
The white stuff on a hot cross bun is a flour paste, made by mixing flour and water. It will harden as your hot cross buns bake but still remains soft enough to be chewy. It creates the white cross hot cross buns are famous for.
Are hot cross buns a UK thing?
Yes, traditionally, hot cross buns are something eaten in the UK at Easter. They stem from a Christian tradition. Celebrating the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross. They are a soft spiced bread that is often toasted and eaten for breakfast on Good Friday.
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Recipe
Hot Cross Bun Dessert
Equipment
- Medium sized oven proof dish
Ingredients
- 300 ml (300 ml) full fat milk
- 300 ml (300 ml) double cream / heavy cream (heavy cream)
- 1 (1) vanilla pod
- 4 large (3) eggs
- 3 tablespoons (3 tablespoons) caster sugar
- 6 (6) Hot Cross Buns
- 50 g (1.76 oz) unsalted butter plus extra for greasing
- cinnamon (optional)
Instructions
- To make the custard place the whole milk in a saucepan.
- Add in the double cream to the milk.
- Slice a vanilla pod in half, scrape out the centre and add the centre and pod to the cream and milk mix.
- Place on a medium heat and stir as it comes up to a boil. Take it off the heat before it boils. Allow to cool slightly.
- In a bow whisk the eggs and caster sugar.
- Slowly pour the warm milk and cream mixture over the eggs, stirring constantly until smooth.
- Grease a large ovenproof dish. I either use melted butter and pastry brush to paint it on or use a piece of kitchen paper with some soft butter I rub over.
- Slice the Hot Cross Buns into a top and bottom slice. Butter each side of the bread.
- Lay the botto slices up in the oven proof dish.
- Pour half of the warm custard mix over the bottom slices of hot cross bun. (remove the vanilla pod)
- Pop on the top of the hot cross buns. Dividing it up makes sure the middle of the buns get enough of the custard mix.
- Pour over the remaining custard mix. Leave to soak for at about 30 mins. (If you want to make it feel even more warming you can add a sprinkle of cinnamon to the hot cross buns before you pop it in the oven.)
- Heat oven to 180C (160C fan). Bake for 35-40 mins until golden brown. Serve straight away.
Notes
Nutrition
Please note that the nutrition information provided above is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
Other Easter recipes you might enjoy
Easy Easter Meringue
Flapjack Easter Nests
Love the look of this dessert – I love hot cross buns, but this would be great when they go stale. Lovely idea, Karen
A lovely comforting dessert, thanks.
This is a wonderful recipe to incorporate into Sunday brunches! Thanks for the recipe!
I’m really looking forward to updating as well as creating a few new hot cross bun recipes this year… Maybe some of them will end up as a bread and butter pudding!
We have the same argument that rages in our house around dessert though. I say ice cream, hubbie says cream and Miss GF goes for custard! There’s just no pleasing some people xx
Ooh hot cross buns. Now you’re talking! Love the idea about making them into a a bread and butter pudding.
I can only imagine how amazingly delicious this is! Love fruity buns, love bread & butter pudding, this has got my name all over it! Bookmarked 🙂
I absolutely love anything to do with Hot Cross Buns and love the idea of this recipe. Looks like comfort food at it’s finest. Definitely trying this one – thanks so much for sharing!
What a lovely recipe, I love hot crossed buns served warm from the oven. I’m also partial to them in a bread and butter pudding.
Gorgeous, what a stunning Easter dessert – great idea!
I’ve got a similar recipe and it is one of my favourites! Hot cross buns make the most amazing bread and butter pudding. I like it swimming in double cream!
What a lovely step-by-step recipe. This will make a fabulous Easter dessert. Saving this and can’t wait to try it out!
A perfect Easter pud!!
Hmmm, these look delicious. I tried to make Hot Cross Buns for the first time last year but they did not work out 100%. I am going to try your recipe this year. Thanks for sharing.
Well isn’t this a stone cold banger of a recipe?! Genius!