Growing up, Tiffany Campos watched her grandmother make budín de pan — Puerto Rican bread pudding — from scratch. The scent of cinnamon filled the house, along with the sound of her abuela’s Spanish and life lessons. Her abuela tore the bread apart with her hands, each finger tipped with long magenta nails. “That’s where I realized that this is not something you just whip up and serve to your guests,” Campos said. “It’s something you have to respect.”
Today Campos carries that lesson — and her grandmother’s recipe — into a commercial kitchen a couple of times a week. With her business, Heritage Bread Pudding, Campos still hand-picks the dough to honor her family’s legacy.
Heritage is perhaps the only business in New York City outside home kitchens exclusively selling bread pudding. Campos makes each batch with locally baked Queens bread, whole ingredients and no preservatives. Instead of heavy holiday trays, the dessert comes in sleek four-packs or three-pound tins—ideal for a charcuterie board or celebrations. Campos’s vision was to reimagine bread pudding as an everyday indulgence, not just a holiday dessert.
Origin story
Bread pudding has been in Campos’s family for more than 30 years, starting with her grandmother. Out of all her cousins, Campos was the one who loved to bake. “‘If I don’t start taking the reins, … this huge piece of my childhood and a tiny piece of our culture, where is that going to go?” Campos said. “It’s not going to get lost. We’re going to save grandma’s recipe.”
However, Campos didn’t start seriously considering baking budín de pan into a business until after her daughter was born. She was planning to return to her decade-long career in hospitality when she caught a creative itch. Campos’s research confirmed her hunch: no other formal business in the city is specializing in Puerto Rican-style bread pudding.
The chance came at a church barbecue fundraiser. Campos baked bite-sized cubes of bread pudding and sold 150 bite-sized cubes in one day. One woman told her, “This is it.”
This early success drove Campos to get certified, secure a licensed commercial kitchen and ultimately launch Heritage Bread Pudding in fall 2024.
Egg prices and kitchen therapy
When she launched Heritage, Campos had to figure out everything from sourcing to pricing. She kept the recipe clean, with no seed oils or fillers, while ensuring it’s giftable. She Googled and even asked ChatGPT for help finding what others were charging for desserts.
When egg prices spiked last year, she raised costs only slightly, from $12.99 to $14.99 per four-pack. She’s working on a single-serve option.
In the kitchen, Campos follows her grandmother’s method: ordering bread early so it firms up, hand-tearing and racing against the clock so the batter doesn’t break down. She bakes from early morning through late afternoon. It’s hard work, but Campos calls it therapy.
She also designed packaging to stand out in gourmet shops: a blend of her and her grandmother’s favorite colors, featuring a childhood photo of her grandmother in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
“It was my way of sort of making that little girl feel special when I know at that time she didn’t feel too special,” Campos said.
A holiday market bump
Heritage’s first big event came via Made in NYC, a nonprofit that supports local manufacturers as it highlighted BIPOC brands at its Grand Central holiday market. They prepared enough for nine days but sold out in two. “I didn’t realize that it was going to be flying off the table … while super exciting, it was frightening too,” Campos said.
They got little sleep. Campos baked while her husband returned to his full-time job and her mother cared for their daughter. Packaging was literally falling to pieces — pre-packaged boxes were collapsing in the fridge — and she learned rushed batter won’t set. Entire trays went in the trash.
“It was such a learning curve,” Campos said. “After that, we were professionals.”
Working out of Entrepreneur Space, a commercial kitchen in Long Island City, has opened new doors. Heritage is partnering with seniors from Johnson & Wales University, a culinary and business school, to refine the product and plan for growth. Meanwhile, word-of-mouth drives much of the business.
Bringing back childhood memories
Bread pudding isn’t just for holidays. One woman drove three hours from New Jersey after finding Heritage on Instagram. Once, during a delivery near the Verrazano-Narrows bridge, one customer opened the box on the spot.
Another woman in her early 80s fell silent after trying their bread pudding. “She goes, ‘I have not tried something like this since my grandmother,’” Campos said. “It brought her back all of her childhood memories.”
Honoring tradition
Campos says she has deep respect for pastry chefs and doesn’t claim to be one. “Feeling that way in a room filled with all these renowned chefs, it’s humbling,” she said. “But … they’ve welcomed me with open arms.”
She also noticed that most desserts on the market are Eurocentric. Even bread pudding began as a savory dish in Europe before the Caribbean and Latin America transformed it into a dessert. Countries like Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba each have their own twist. However, she hasn’t seen a gourmet take on Puerto Rican bread pudding in NYC.
Heritage has leaned heavily on pop-ups and events to grow, completing more than 30 in its first year. Upcoming Hispanic Heritage Month events start with stops across Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Heritage is also the official dessert sponsor of the NY Latino Film Festival’s Futuro conference on Sept. 13.
During a recent trip to Florida, Campos visited her grandmother with boxes of bread pudding. Her abuela immediately took apart the packaging — which features a childhood photo of her grandmother—and proceeded to serve everyone in the room. She is in the early signs of dementia, so sometimes she forgets why her face is on the packaging.
“Every time that I have an opportunity to retell that story of what we’re doing, I make sure that it’s in the most jovial spirit that I can possibly give her,” Campos said. “Every time I’m giving her new news, this beautiful news, and she’s excited about it.”
Advice for other makers:
- Start small: Campos’s first “test run” was at her church fundraiser. It was a low-risk way to validate demand for her product.
- Go for opportunities, then figure it out. Campos applied to the Grand Central holiday market at the last minute — and that experience quickly taught her about packaging, signage and sampling. It also gave the business a big word-of-mouth bump.
- Tap into nonprofits like Made in NYC. Campos recommends any entrepreneur whose start-up manufactures at least 50% of your products in New York City reach out to the organization. Membership is free, and they offer complimentary resources like product photography and workshops.
- Lean on community and family support. Campos says her husband is her carpenter, sous chef and delivery guy. He built out an interactive display that they’re planning to debut next week at a special event. Campos trusts her daughter is safe and happy with Campos’s mother. Her father handles technical tasks, deliveries and drop-offs, while her in-laws step in for heavier needs when her husband is away on work trips.
- Prioritize authenticity. Campos stayed true to her grandmother’s method, and that became her brand’s differentiator.
Order online at heritagebreadpudding.com/shop.
Follow them on Instagram at @heritagebreadpudding.
Visit them at these upcoming events during Hispanic Heritage month.
Heritage bread pudding is absolutely delicious and definitely a treat if your Puerto Rican!!!
My husband and I attended the Snug Harbor event, we purchased bread pudding while we were there it was the best absolutely delicious !