Making bread pudding with brioche: should it be stale?

Cut your brioche into slices and let sit out for a few hours at room temperature. You won't need to toast or grill -- the texture will be perfect for bread pudding (it's what I use).

Any bread pudding recipe will call for "day-old" bread. The bread doesn't actually have to be stale, only dried out somewhat. In fact, most recipes that use bread as an ingredient (croutons, for example) recommend stale/day-old bread. Otherwise, the final product will turn out too watery (or in the case of croutons, they'll ABSORB too much moisture).

But if you have fresh bread, whatever type, you can just cut or tear it into small chunks and toast it in your oven. It's much easier than trying to use your conventional toaster. Just lay the bread chunks on a baking sheet, and toast in a hot oven (like, 425 degrees) and check on them every 10 minutes. When they've reached the desired crispness/brownness, remove them and use them as the recipe dictates.

I believe originally bread pudding was invented to help homemakers use up stale bread, back in the days when they had no freezer. You can use fresh bread. You can also get very good bread puddings by using stale (or fresh) donuts, cake, muffins, etc., instead of bread or along with bread. Stale honey dipped donuts make absolutely delicious bread puddings.