There are two rules to keep in mind when you see bread pudding on a dessert menu. The first is that no two bread puddings are alike, so there’s a certain element of surprise. Will it be more bready or more puddingy? Spongy, gloppy, or even crispy? Shaped into a slab, a disc, or an amorphous blob? Will the bread be in small pieces, thick slices, or just crumbs?

I can’t think of another dish that comes in so many varied forms. Indeed, do a Google image search on “bread pudding” and you’ll see dozens of photos that look like, at most, very distant cousins.

The unpredictability entailed in that first rule makes the second rule all the more surprising: Bread pudding is almost always delicious. And why shouldn’t it be? Its primary components – which, despite all the varied renditions, are almost always bread, milk, eggs, and sugar – are the same ones that make French toast so irresistible.

The authoritative “Oxford Companion to Food” reports that the concept of bread pudding can likely be traced to “the medieval practice of using a hollowed-out loaf as the container for a sweet dish.” But what we recognize as bread pudding was created, like so many other great dishes, as a method of thrift – in this case, as a way to use stale bread.

And just as with savory stuffings, some recipes for bread pudding still specify the use of stale bread, the thought being that the older, drier bread will be more absorbent when soaking in the milk/egg mixture, much like a dry sponge can absorb more liquid than a moist one.

It’s safe to say that nothing stale goes into the bread pudding at Blue Ribbon Bakery (33 Downing St., 212-337-0404). The famed West Village eatery offers two stellar options: a chocolate chip bread pudding, topped with chocolate sauce, and a banana-walnut version, topped with banana-caramel sauce. Both come with vanilla ice cream, which intermingles nicely with the sauces as it melts.

The Blue Ribbon bread puddings – which are also available at Blue Ribbon Brooklyn (280 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn, 718-840-0404) but not at Blue Ribbon’s SoHo outlet on Sullivan Street – are presented as hefty, moist bricks. Interestingly, the edges are crisped, as if the confection had been toasted just before serving, providing an undercurrent of crunchiness not found in most bread puddings. A single order runs $12.50 and is easily enough for two people, but the staff is usually willing to serve you a half-portion, or to combine half-portions of each type into a single order, which is the approach I recommend.

An excellent Latino version of bread pudding can be found a few blocks north, at Matador (57 Greenwich Ave., 212-691-0057). It arrives at the table as a small cylinder with bits of chocolate, banana, and raisins interlayered with smallish slivers of bread ($7). A drizzle of caramel sauce and a dusting of cocoa and cinnamon top things off, making for an excellent mix of flavors and textures.

The Waterfront Ale House (155 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, 718-522-3794) offers a series of seasonal bread puddings. This winter they’ve been serving a superb eggnog-soaked version with a rum glaze ($6). The small hunks of bread have been formed into a square slice. It sits in a circular puddle of eggnog that features a caramelized top crust, effectively creating a very shallow, but very good, creme brulee. It’s like getting two desserts in one.

Caribbean nations have their own versions of bread pudding – usually a very thick slab of sweetened hardo bread, so named because it’s made from hard dough. “It’s very dense, because their food has to be able to stand up to the tropical climate without spoiling,” explained Robert Sietsema, author of the recently updated “Food Lover’s Guide to the Best Ethnic Eating in New York City” (Arcade, $14.95), who was kind enough to take me on an afternoon tour of Jamaican, Trinidadian, Haitian, and Guyanese bakeries in several Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Several of the bread puddings we sampled were so heavy that they seemed to hit the counter – and my stomach – with an audible thud. Some of them also had a cloyingly sweet glaze, as if someone had poured the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries over the bread. “The key is finding a place that makes their own instead of having it trucked in,” said Mr. Sietsema as we moved on from one venue to another.

We finally hit pay dirt at Allan’s (1109 Nostrand Ave., Brooklyn, 718-774-7892), a West Indian bakery in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. Their bread pudding is a delight: dense but not heavy, sweet but not saccharine, and very moist. The top surface is toasted brown and the interior is studded with dried currants. It all combines into an addictive treat – and at only $1.10 a slab, it’s an addiction you can easily afford.

Of course, you can also make your own bread pudding. It’s relatively easy to do, although you have to allow some time for the bread to soak. My version (see accompanying recipe) is fairly basic, but you can tinker with almost any aspect of it – the kind of bread, the size and shape of the bread pieces, the addition or exclusion of nuts, fruits, or spices. You can even flavor the milk that the bread soaks in with chocolate syrup or instant coffee. That’s one of bread pudding’s charms: Anything goes.

Well, almost anything – please, whatever else you do, don’t use one of those new low-carb breads. True, Dr. Atkins and his devotees would no doubt disapprove of bread pudding, but that’s their loss. Fortunately, it leaves more for the rest of us.

Bourbon-Raisin Bread Pudding

1 1-pound baguette, brioche, or other bread, cut into small pieces
1 1 /3 cups raisins
2 /3 cup bourbon
3 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
7 eggs
1 /2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 /2 cup chopped walnuts

1 Place bourbon and raisins in a small saucepan or Pyrex bowl and heat until bour bon is warm. Remove from heat and set aside.

2 Using an electric mixer, beat milk, eggs, cream, sugar, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Add the bread, submerging the pieces into the liquid. Let the bread soak up the milk mixture for at least two hours, stirring well every half hour to ensure that all the pieces are well soaked on all sides.

3 Mix raisins, bourbon, and walnuts into the soaked bread.

4 Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Spread bread pudding mixture into a buttered and floured 9-by-13-inch glass baking pan. Bake until top is browned, about 75 minutes. Slice into squares and serve with caramel sauce.