Comments (2)

By Anna, 11 September, 2010 12:53 pm

Delightful Bread Pudding – not to be confused with its richer cousin, bread and butter pudding – is another way to use up stale bread.
As my Grandad pointed out to my Mum, the addition of dried fruit, butter, sugar, eggs and spices makes it a very expensive way of using up cheap stale bread, but it is delicious and filling. Just the thing to plug the vast, bottomless hunger hole that inhabits the space between coming home from school and eating dinner.
Speaking of children, this is a really good recipe for kids to make – the tearing of bread is laborious, but passes more quickly with someone chatting to you, little hands are good at squeezing water from soggy bread and they can beat it half to death with a wooden spoon because you can’t overmix bread pudding.

Interestingly, Grandad’s recipe book lists the recipe as a hot pudding to be eaten with custard, but we never ate it this way; no, it’s strictly left to cool and cut into slabs to be devoured as you would a piece of cake. A very substantial piece of cake, mind you, but still that’s our eating method of choice.
Yes, it’s a good rainy day recipe and it’s decidedly Autumnal here now. Sad for us to bid farewell to hot days, but great for good traditional bread pudding!

Continue reading 'Bread Pudding'»

Comments (4)

By Anna, 3 November, 2009 4:36 pm

AKA how to use up the reduced items from the bakery that you bought and stashed in your freezer.

You have Ian to thank for this. He was supposed to go fishing, but the forecast was very, very wrong so when he arrived at the beach he decided against being drowned for the sake of a potential Dover Sole. I’m still undecided on that one because Dover Sole is extremely nice and arguably worth some level of sacrifice, but most importantly gives us the delicious opportunity to say ‘ahhhhhhhhhh … sole’  to each other quite a lot.
So you think that because he came home dejected and damp, I prepared him a bread and butter pudding? No.

He wasn’t alone on his return.
He had 2 boxes of frozen squid with him. Useless things; wouldn’t know one end of a hoover from the other, but they needed a home, well, a freezer for the night.
I rifled through the freezer, (good GRIEF we have a lot of berries, and some pork ribs that I have no memory of purchasing, ever) and found a little niche for them.
Only problem was, that spot had been inhabited by some croissants…oh dear… what to do…

So, I asked them, but they just said ‘meh’ and scowled at me – about as much use as the squid. Inflamed by this, I found 2 hot cross buns that had resided with us since Easter and left them all out to defrost.

Thanks Ian!

It doesn’t get much more Brit dish than this warm, spiced, silken, custard pudding.

Continue reading 'Hot Cross Croissant and Butter Pudding'»

Comments (4)

By Anna, 15 October, 2009 5:56 pm

Warmed by a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, this date paste and toasted pecan filling is addictive! I’m thinking they will be nice alternatives to mince pies at Christmas.

I was toying with ideas of how to use dates more in cooking, because they seem to be so reasonably priced at the moment, and thought I’d start by stewing them down and taking it from there. The spices, as I said, warmed it up (and let’s face it, dates and spices are an obvious match), but it was Ian’s idea to add some nuts to give it more texture.  It’s worked beautifully!

I could extol its healthy virtues, because there is no sugar in this filling recipe, but the dates are teeming with their own natural sugars and the shortbread pastry is far from healthy… a half healthy treat? Yum.

Continue reading 'Date and Pecan Pies'»

Comments (3)

By Anna, 13 August, 2009 12:06 am

When life throws you milk, make rice pudding.

Browsing through the supermarket, I happened upon a single bottle of milk.
Rah-rah, you think. But it wasn’t just a bottle of milk… oh no, it was Gold Top; that is the creamiest milk you can get your hands on. A blend of milk from Jersey and Guernsey cows, it is little more than cream dressed up in a milk dress.

Continue reading 'Rice Pudding'»