I love bread pudding, and I recently noticed a trend for hot cross bun bread pudding. And of course, I had to veganise it! This is my cheats vegan hot cross bun pudding!
You can buy hot cross buns all year round now, and they are usually vegan and quite cheap as well. This is a great recipe for if you have a couple of buns left over. Freeze them until you have a few and then make this delicious bread pudding!
This makes a perfect Easter vegan treat for unexpected guests as it takes no time to throw together.
This was inspired by leftover homemade hot cross buns, and is a great dessert to serve alongside my Easter biscuits.
Let's address the elephant in the room. This will never win prizes for looking good, but comfort food is not designed to look nice. Comfort food is there to give you a big hug, and make you scrunch your shoulders up in pleasure and waggle your feet as you eat.
My vegan hot cross bread pudding is the ultimate comfort food, soft, doughy, creamy and scented with vanilla and orange.
What makes this so special is just how easy it is to make. Instead of making a custard, you simply use vanilla ice cream (plant-based). Because ice cream is basically a custard (although an eggless custard in this instance).
To add a little extra flavour, I spread marmalade inside the hot cross buns and some orange zest to the final dish.
You could serve this with some plant-based single cream or more ice cream, if you like, but I enjoy it warm, just as it is.
Ingredients
- hot cross buns, stale or fresh
- vegan vanilla ice cream
- marmalade
- vegan butter
- orange zest
(This is ONLY a list of ingredients for the recipe; please see recipe card below for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)
Instructions
Slice the hot cross buns in half, then spread them with vegan butter and marmalade
Place them in a lightly oiled baking dish, and grate over a little orange zest
Dot with the vanilla ice cream and leave to melt for about 10 minutes
Bake for 25 minutes or until bubbling and the "custard" is turning golden
Hint: you can leave the pudding overnight in the fridge before baking, it will just absorb more of the ice cream and be gooier and even more delicious!
Substitutions
- Hot Cross Buns - instead of fruited buns, you could use chocolate chips
- Hot Cross Buns - use gluten free buns instead of regular to make this gluten free
Variations
- Chocolate - try spreading the hot cross buns with chocolate spread instead of marmalade
- Deluxe - add chocolate chips to the custard before baking
Storage
- Place the pre-baked bread pudding in the fridge overnight, cling-filmed, before baking the next day.
- You can reheat the pudding the next day, either in a low oven, or just in bowls in the microwave.
- I wouldn't recommend freezing my bread pudding.
Related
Looking for other Easter recipes like this? Try these:
📋 Recipe
Vegan Cheats Hot Cross Bun Bread Pudding
Equipment
- 1 Baking Dish lightly buttered, that will snuggly hold the hot cross buns
Ingredients
- 6 Hot Cross Buns stale or fresh, use shop-bought, or make your own, here's my recipe
- 2 tablespoon Marmalade
- 1 tablespoon Butter vegan
- 500ml Ice Cream vanilla, plant-based
- Orange zest only
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180c
- Slice the hot cross buns in half and spread each side with butter and marmalade. Sandwich them back together.
- Fit them snuggly into your baking dish, it doesn't matter if you have to squish them a little, in fact it's preferable.
- Sprinkle over orange zest.
- Cover the hot cross buns with the ice cream and leave that to melt into the hot cross buns for 10 minutes or so.
Make-ahead option
- At this point, you can cover with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight if you want to make ahead.
Bake
- Once the ice cream has melted, place the pudding in the oven, and bake for about 10-15 minute, or until the edges of the buns are starting to turn toasty.
- Remove from the oven and leave to stand for about 5 minutes, before serving.
Did you make this recipe? Let me know!