Most people associate dessert with special occasions. But I’m a dessert-every-day kind of girl. And in my book, the best sweet treats are the ones that don’t require extra shopping. When you can whip up something special with ingredients that are already in your kitchen, the results taste even sweeter.

If fried rice is the savory king of leftovers, bread pudding is the dessert queen. The ends of a loaf never go quite as fast as the first few slices — enthusiasm for the stale bread waning as the days go on. I keep the last bits of a sad loaf of old bread in my freezer, right next to the overripe bananas, so that one day I might have just enough for a bread pudding.

This recipe calls for brioche, an enriched bread that makes a lovely, buttery pudding, but you could use any quality bread that you have on hand. Stale croissants are equally delightful. Or you can even try a rustic white boule. And bread pudding is customizable, even beyond the bread. If you have some chocolate chips and frozen raspberries on hand, as I did, then you know what to do. But you can make this pudding with whatever you’ve got. Try raisins. Or maybe add in blueberries. You could even put that can of leftover pumpkin puree to good use. Stir in rum, vanilla or some orange zest. Let your pantry be your guide to a different dessert every week.

Samantha Seneviratne is a New York-based writer, recipe developer and food stylist. She is the author of The New Sugar and Spice (Ten Speed Press), a baking cookbook combining family stories and food history with recipes that reimagine dessert as a more balanced mix of sugar and spice. Her second book, Gluten Free for Good (Clarkson Potter), comes out in August 2016. She blogs about dessert at Love, Cake.