Strawberry Shortcake Bread Pudding (Dairy Free Options)

This strawberry shortcake bread pudding takes all the flavors that everyone loves from a traditional strawberry shortcake and combines them in to one amazing bite. This strawberry dessert should most definitely be made for all parties this summer! Dairy free options listed.  Taking pictures of bread pudding is hard — just so you know. If you have seen any of our previous bread pudding recipes, you’ll probably agree — no matter how delicious bread pudding is, it’s hard to make it look appetizing! I’m not even going to link to those recipes, because they look totally disgusting (I need to redo those sometime . . .) So, I think it took me longer to take pictures of this, than it did to actually make it! On one hand, that’s a good thing — it means this recipe is pretty easy. On the other hand, it makes me really hope these pictures look good enough that people want to make it! Because I’m on the fence. And if you are to, just trust me…this is a great recipe. Anyways, despite it all, I really like bread pudding. I’m grateful that Forrest introduced me to it four years ago, and that I no longer thought it was a disgusting sounding dessert. Because it isn’t! I especially love how you can so easily come up with new variations of it, and it tastes like a totally new dessert. This strawberry shortcake-inspired bread puddings is one of my favorites yet. I’m a big fan of strawberry shortcake, and this bread pudding puts all those fantastic flavors into one delicious bite.   I also have to say — the strawberries I used in this were fantastic. I think strawberry season is officially in full bloom. We buy strawberries on a regular basis, and they are usually so-so…but these ones? So yummy and full of flavor! They definitely made this strawberry bread pudding so much better. We made this recipe mostly dairy free. The croissants had some butter in them, but dairy in baked goods don’t bother him. However, if you want to make it dairy free, just use bread that’s dairy free! We used coconut milk and Earth Balance butter in place of heavy cream and butter. But, if you don’t have a reason to make it dairy free, just follow the dairy ingredients as listed. One of our favorite parts of this dessert is the strawberry whipped cream. This was Forrest’s idea, and it was so easy to make. I normally love whipped cream and the strawberry just makes it that much better. If you want to make dairy free whipped cream, just put a can of whipped cream in the refrigerator over night, open the can upside down when you are ready to use it, drain the liquid portion, and then whip the coconut cream like the recipe describes.