2014 Cooking Club Week 37: Bread and Butter Pudding

Right, so I'm kind of starting a trend of easy, traditional desserts, but I tried a few new things recently, hoping they might be good as cooking club recipes, and they were abject failures. Also, we were talking about this at work a while back and a few people had NEVER HEARD OF BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING.:eek: I tried out a friend's fancy white chocolate version (if you're reading this, thanks M!) but missed the dried fruit from it, so I'm going with the tried and tested ultimate comfort food recipe.

Ingredients (4-6 portions):

6 slices of thick white bread
85g of butter (according to the recipe, but I just use whatever butter I need to butter the six slices and grease the dish)
80g dried mixed fruit (or go by eye. I usually end up adding more)
3 eggs
300ml milk
150ml double cream (I got normal cream by accident, but it works fine)
55g caster sugar
1 tbsp demerara sugar
cinnamon (optional, forgotten in the photo)



Preheat the oven to 180C.

Grease a 20x25cm baking dish and butter the slices of bread. Cut the slices in halves or quarters and arrange half of them overlapping or squished together in the dish. If you have any cop on, unlike me, you will make this in a rectangular dish and not an oval one - I got this dish recently and love it, but I ended up mushing bits of bread into the ends to fill it. Also, cutting the slices in quarters rather than halves will make it easier to serve, but I'm the only one in this house who eats bread so portion sizes weren't terribly relevant.

Scatter most of the fruit over the bread, and a shake of cinnamon if you're using it.



Cover with the remaining slices and the rest of the fruit. Try to tuck the fruit into the bread a bit, because they tend to burn a bit on top, but I think it looks nicer with some fruit on top.

In a mixing jug or bowl, whisk the eggs well and mix in the milk, cream and sugar. Pour it over the pudding and leave it to stand for a couple of minutes to soak in. Sprinkle the demerara sugar on top.



Place in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes until set and golden brown (mine was a tiny bit too long in there, but I like a good crunch on the top so it worked out okay). If you take it out to check and kind of shake it gently, if the liquid bubbles up between the slices it's not done yet.



Let it cool a bit, then serve with pouring cream or ice cream, and a big mug of tea. It should be crunchy on top and gooey and fruity in the middle.

No pictures of it cut, because mine never looks pretty, but it tasted pretty good! Hope you enjoy it.