Panettone Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe
by Nicola Lando
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Easy
If you’ve ever wondered what to do with leftover panettone, this recipe is the answer. Rich with custard, scented with citrus peel and soft fruit, and baked until golden on top, it’s a pudding that feels both indulgent and comforting. Perfect for Christmas, New Year, or simply when there’s panettone in the house.
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Why Panettone Makes the Best Bread and Butter Pudding?
Panettone’s light, airy texture soaks up custard beautifully, while the candied peel and raisins add bursts of sweetness.
Compared to regular bread, it creates a softer, more luxurious bread and butter pudding – one that feels truly special. It’s also an ideal way to use up the panettone you might have left after the festive season.
How To Use Panettone In A Pudding
Panettone, with its naturally sweet flavour, aromatic fragrance, and candied fruits is tailor-made for dessert. Can you eat panettone as a dessert? Absolutely!
- Use panettone to replace the bread in bread & butter pudding recipes
- Switch thin slices of panettone for the bread in a summer pudding - and use more winter seasonal fruits for a cold winter pudding.
- Toast panettone or make toasted panettone breadcrumbs for crunch with syllabub or sabayon dessert.
Freezing and Serving Tips
Can you freeze panettone bread and butter pudding? Definitely! However, ensure it's cooled completely and wrapped securely before storing it in the freezer. To enjoy, defrost in the refrigerator and then reheat in the oven.
Panettone bread and butter pudding freezes best if it's fairly firm - and doesn't have any excess liquid in the base. So if you are planning to freeze your pudding, ensure you allow adequate baking time and avoid oversaturating the bread with the custard mix.
More Panettone Recipe Ideas
Ingredients for Panettone Bread And Butter Pudding Serves: 8
- 500g panettone, sliced into generous portions
- 50g unsalted butter, softened
- 300ml double cream
- 300ml milk
- 4 large eggs
- 150g caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Zest of 1 orange
- A handful of sultanas or raisins (optional)
- Icing sugar, for dusting
How To Make Panettone Bread And Butter Pudding
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan) or 350°F.
- Generously butter each panettone slice on both sides and arrange them in a large, buttered ovenproof dish.
- In a saucepan, gently heat the cream and milk until it's warm but not boiling.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and orange zest.
- Slowly pour the warm milk and cream mixture into the egg mixture, whisking continuously.
- Sprinkle sultanas or raisins between the layers of panettone if you're using them.
- Pour the custard over the panettone slices, ensuring they are well-soaked.
- Allow the panettone to sit for about 20 minutes to absorb the custard fully.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes, or until the custard has set and the top is golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and let it stand for a few minutes before serving.
- Serve warm, with cream or ice cream.
About the author
Nicola Lando is the co-founder and CEO of Sous Chef, where she has spent more than a decade sourcing, tasting and selecting specialist ingredients, cookware and tableware from producers around the world.
She trained at Leiths and later completed a stage at a Michelin-starred London restaurant, experiences that helped shape Sous Chef’s original mission: to give home cooks access to the same exceptional ingredients used by professional chefs.
Today, Nicola leads much of Sous Chef’s product sourcing and ingredient selection, working directly with producers and travelling internationally to food fairs, farms, mills and manufacturers. She tastes thousands of products each year and has built deep expertise across storecupboard ingredients, olive oil, condiments, spices, preserved foods and specialist cooking ingredients.
She holds an olive oil sommelier certification from ESAO in Spain, Imperial Executive Education’s Certificate in Nutrition for Health: Evidence-Based Tools and Strategies certificate; as well as studying Food Safety and Control at University of Greenwich.
Nicola also writes recipes and ingredient guides for Sous Chef, combining practical cooking experience with first-hand knowledge from producers, suppliers and specialist food makers. Her work focuses on helping cooks understand how to choose better ingredients, use them well, and get more flavour from their cooking.
