I love it when I find family recipes that don’t take too much work in order to reinvent them into Instant Pot recipes. So when I find a recipe that already calls for a pressure cooker, it’s a win win. And when that recipe also happens to be a delicious dessert, it’s a win win WIN! Cuban Bread Pudding is traditionally made in a pressure cooker, so it only needs a few tweaks to make it in the Instant Pot. And the best part about this recipe is it is so easy to put together and is very inexpensive and uses ingredients that you probably have in your pantry.
The basis of this recipe comes from Nitza Villapol’s book Cocina Criolla , but with a few changes. The first change is Nitza uses a traditional Cuban sweet bread called Pan de Leche, or milk bread. I recognize that this can be almost impossible to find outside of Cuba and though I have found some great recipes if you want to make Pan de Leche from scratch, I have come up with a substitute that is easy to find anywhere and has a very similar texture and sweetness to milk bread. I also added a small step, soaking the raisins in Rum, to boost the flavor and when is adding Rum a bad thing? Right?
Instant Pot Cuban Bread Pudding
Recipe by Lana Horruitiner Perez adapted from Nitza Villapol’s book Cocina Criolla
1 1/2 cup Sugar (3/4 for Caramel and 3/4 for the pudding mixture)
6 oz Hawaiian Bread (6 rolls), the staler the better
1 1/2 cup Whole Milk
3 Large Eggs
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Vanilla (I like using Dominican Vanilla, but you can use whatever you have.)
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 cup Raisins
1/2 cup Rum
-First I want to talk about the pan I cooked the bread pudding in. I think the best pan to cook bread pudding in is a flan pan. Most people have never heard of a flan pan. It is a 6 inch round pan with a top that clips on. If you are an avid Instant Pot user I would recommend buying one online. They are very inexpensive and you can use it for lots of different recipes. (If you don’t have a flan pan, you can use any 6 inch cake pan that has a solid bottom. Do not use a spring form pan.) Here is a link to buy the Flan Pan on Amazon. IMUSA Flan Pan
-In a small bowl, add 1/2 cup Raisins (I like using Golden Raisins, but you can use whatever you like). Pour 1/2 cup of Rum over the Raisins and let them sit while you continue making the caramel and pudding.
-In a medium sauce pan on medium low heat, add 3/4 cups Sugar. The key to making caramel is DO NOT STIR SUGAR until it has started to melt. You do not need to add anything to the sugar. Just leave it alone and it will start to melt and turn brown all by itself.
-Once the sugar starts to melt then you can stir it occasionally until it has completely melted and is a light caramel color. Then carefully pour the caramel into the pan you are going to use to cook the bread pudding. Wearing oven mitts, tilt the pan around so the caramel coats an inch up the sides of the pan. Be very careful when working with melted sugar! Once you have coated the sides, set the pan aside.
-In a large bowl tear the 6 oz of Hawaiian Rolls into medium size pieces. Pour 1 1/2 cup Whole Milk over the bread and place in the fridge to soak while you complete the next few steps.
-In another mixing bowl, whisk 3 Large Eggs, 3/4 cup Sugar, 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon, 1 tsp Vanilla, 1/4 tsp Salt, and 1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg. Pour the egg mixture over the bread and milk mixture. Drain the Raisins and add just the Raisins (not the Rum….you can drink that if you want!) to the bread mixture. With a spatula, lightly fold the ingredients together. You want to combine everything, but don’t mix it too hard or it will turn into mush. Try to keep as many big pieces of bread in tact as you can. Pour the mixture into the flan pan right over the caramel. Level out the top with a spatula and then clip the lid in place. (If you are using an different type of pan, you can just cover the top tightly with foil.)
-Pour 1 cup of Water into the Instant Pot and insert a trivet. Place the Flan Pan on the trivet above the water and lock the Instant Pot lid into place and make sure the valve is set to SEALED.
-Cook on High Pressure for 30 minutes and then Natural Release for 10 minutes. Remove the Pan from the Instant Pot and remove the lid or foil from the pan. Place the uncovered pan into an oven set to BROIL for 10-15 minutes until the top (which is actually going to be the bottom once it’s inverted) of the Bread Pudding gets slightly brown and toasty. Set on a wire cooling rack and cool for 30 minutes.
-Run a knife around the edge of the inside of the pan. Place a plate on top of the pan and turn out the Bread Pudding onto the plate. Serve warm or cover and place in the fridge. Enjoy!
Hello your Cuban bread pudding looks delish
Where can I get Dominican vanilla? Never heard of it I live in south Florida – just bought the flanera from your link – thank you
Will you be posting an instapot kugel recipe soon?
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You could probably find Dominican vanilla at Sedanos. If not you can use regular vanilla or a high quality vanilla. I just like the Dominican vanilla because it’s half the price of pure canola and I think just as flavorful. I tried a kugel recipe converted from my grandmother’s recipe but I didn’t like the texture as much as when I bake it. I will be posting that one soon. I’m going to keep playing around with the ip kugel until I get it right. Thank you so much for your feedback!
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One vanilla i absolutely love is found near the taco isle is Molina vanilla its ver inexpensive and the flavor is amazing! Its what i call the in-between for imitation and pure vanilla extract cost and flavor wise. Its only 1.48 for a 8.3 ounce bottle.
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Great recipe. Tastes great. One problem we had though. The Caramel hardened and some of it stuck to the Flan pan. When we turned the pan over with plate underneath, it did come out of the pan easily, but about a 1/4 of an inch of caramel was left in the pan, hardened, like you’d get on top of a Candy Apple? Did that mean the caramel was cooked too long? Was unsure of when to stir it and waited until the edges started to liquefy. Only then did I see the sugar underneath was liquefied already. I did use a small pot, maybe too small?
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Thank you so much for feedback and I’m so glad you liked it. Caramel is a tricky thing. At about 300 degrees it gets to what they call the “hard crack” stage. I don’t use a candy thermometer in my recipes because most people don’t have one, but it the sugar gets to brown and too hot, it will reach that stage and then you get a hard candy type topping. But you bring up a good point and I think maybe I’ll add a sugar color chart to show when is just the right stage. I will also maybe add a video to help. Thanks so much!
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I love so many of your recipes. I wish they save them to my recipe app AnyList. But I copy and pasy my favorites.
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I can’t thank you enough for sharing that with me. It really makes my heart happy. My whole blog and all my recipes are just my way to keep a tie to my family and when other people love then too it just I’d do wonderful. I will say I’m terrible at web design so I haven’t figured out how to make the pages easier to save and print. But im working on it. Thank you again!
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