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!

Take your stale bread

and tear it into ‘feeding small birds’ pieces. Not swans. Little birds.

Pour over enough cold water to saturate it. I used about 1½ pints, but start with 1 pint. There’s nothing to stop you drowning it completely, but it just increases the amount of time you spend squeezing the water out afterwards.
Let it sit for an hour to get thoroughly soggy.

Putting a couple of handful of soggy bread in the sieve at a time, squeeze and press the water out. You can use whatever utensil you like, but I had great success using my hands.

Once it’s all been squeezed, return to a large bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until it’s mushy and smoother.

Add the raisins, sugar, cinnamon and mixed spice and beat them in.
Add the beaten eggs and melted butter and beat that in too.

Add a little milk (I used about 2 tbsp) to achieve a nice dropping consistency

Pour into a greased baking tin (mine was 9×13″) and sprinkle some demerara sugar and a good rasping of nutmeg over the top. Bake for 1½ to 2 hours.

Until browned, firm and pulling away from the edges of the tin.

Cool in the tin, sprinkle with more sugar and cut into slabs, squares or dainty fingers.

Enjoy!

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Bread Pudding

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1 lb stale bread
9oz raisins
4oz sugar
4oz butter, melted or very soft
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
2 eggs, beaten
Milk to mix
Nutmeg and Demerara sugar to dredge

Tear the bread into small ‘feed the birds’ pieces.
Pour over cold water to saturate the bread – anything between 1 and 2 pints depending on the staleness of your bread. Leave to soak for an hour.

Heat oven to GM3/160/325
Grease a baking tin of around 9×13″.

Put a couple of handfuls of soggy bread at a time into a nylon sieve and strain and squeeze as much water as you can out of the bread. Beat with a wooden spoon to reduce to mush.
Add the fruit, butter, spices and eggs and beat together. Add enough milk to get a soft dropping consistency, but don’t let it get too wet. I only needed about 2 tbsps.
Pour into the tin and scatter with Demerara sugar and a good rasping of nutmeg.

Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until firm and pulled away from the side of the tin.
Cool in the tin, then when cold, cut into slabs or daintier fingers. Dredge with more sugar if you like.

Store in an airtight container – you can also freeze it.

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.

Preheat oven to GM4/350F/180C
Butter an ovenproof dish – mine is about 9″ round and 4″ deep. If you like it more crispy than moist, use a longer, shallower dish.
Obviously, you can use any bread, pastry or patisserie item. Traditionally, stale bread was used.

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Take 2 hot cross (or fruited) buns and 4 small croissants.

Slice the buns into 3 horizontally and the croissants in half.
Butter each slice.

Start to arrange the slices. Lay the first 3 slices of bun on the bottom of the dish and scatter with some raisins (I used around ¾ cup in total). Sprinkle with about ½ tbsp sugar.

On top of that, arrange 4 halves of croissant. Scatter with some raisins and another ½ tbsp sugar.

Another layer of 3 bun slices, raisins and sugar.

Finally, the last 4 halves of croissant, raisins and 1 tbsp sugar. You can cut these down a bit if you like a craggier, therefore more crispy, topping.

Whisk 3 eggs well with a fork in a large jug.

Slowly add 700ml or 24 fl oz milk, whisking to incorporate.

Pour this eggy milk mixture through a sieve on to the bread layers.

Sprinkle ¼ tsp mixed spice, 1 ½ tbsp sugar and a fine, even covering of nutmeg over the top.
Allow to stand for around 10 mins to allow it all to soak in.

Bake for 45-60 mins. Check after 45 mins, obviously. It should be just set, puffy and golden.

Let it catch its breath for 10 mins or so, then serve. Cold leftovers are pretty fabulous too.

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Hot Cross Croissant and Butter Pudding
or ‘how to use up leftover bakery items from your freezer’

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2 hot cross (or fruited) buns
4 small croissants
butter
4-5 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup raisins (optional, but if you don’t use them, I would increase the sugar)
3 eggs
700ml or 24fl oz milk
¼ tsp mixed spice
scrape of nutmeg

Preheat oven to GM4/350F/180C
Butter an ovenproof dish – mine is about 9″ round and 4″ deep. If you like it more crispy than moist, use a longer, shallower dish.
Obviously, you can use any bread, pastry or patisserie item. Traditionally, stale bread was used.

Slice the hot cross buns horizontally into 3 slices.
Slice the croissants in half horizontally.
Butter each slice.

Start to arrange the slices. Lay the first 3 slices of bun on the bottom of the dish and scatter with some of the raisins. Sprinkle with about ½ tbsp sugar.
On top of that, arrange 4 halves of croissant. Scatter with some raisins and another ½ tbsp sugar.
Another layer of 3 bun slices, raisins and sugar.
Finally, the last 4 halves of croissant, raisins and 1 tbsp sugar.

Whisk the eggs well with a fork in a large jug. Slowly add the milk, whisking to incorporate.
Pour the eggy milk through a sieve over the pastry layers.
Sprinkle the mixed spice, 1 ½ tbsp sugar and a covering of nutmeg over the top.
Allow to stand for around 10 mins to allow it all to soak in.

Bake for 45 – 60 mins until set, puffy and browned.

Let it catch its breath for 10 mins or so, then serve. Cold leftovers are pretty fabulous too.

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.

1 packet of around 250g dates. They’re not medjool, but they are sticky and delicious. I paid about 80p for this packet.

Slit down the length and pop out the stone (I think this is my favourite photo ever – freaky deaky, dude)

Cut in half across the width and put into a small saucepan. Add cold water – ‘up to its shoulders’ is the expression that Dad and I use.  ‘Just over half way’, is the expression Mum and I use.

Put the lid on and bring it up to the boil, then remove the lid and simmer for about 15 mins. This is after about 5 mins.  It’s like boiling a pan of insects, but just relax and go with it.

After 15 mins, the dates are all tender and are becoming a paste

Add cinnamon – you can see it was probably a scant 1/4 tsp, any more than that would dominate the flavour too much. I also scraped a nutmeg a couple of times. Gently, gently, think warm exotic breath, think desert breezes.

Depending on your dates, you may be able to leave it at that, but the skins on the dates I used were too intrusive into the texture, so I whizzed it with a hand blender and that pushed it firmly into puree land. Leave in a bowl to cool.

The pecans. I didn’t photograph this, because it was pointless. Take a handful of pecans – maybe 1/2 cup – and dry fry them in a frying pan. That is, put them in a small frying pan and toss them over and move them around with the heat on. They’re done when you can see that parts of them are bronzed. They also snap much more cleanly and are more brittle when they’re done – a matter of a few minutes.

Spread them out on a plate to cool, then chop into small-ish pieces. They don’t leap around once they’re toasted and the flavour is noticeably improved.

Make your shortbread pastry and use it to line your patty tins. (see the pastry post – this pastry only excels in patty tins)

Fill the pastry with a spoonful of date paste and a sprinkle of toasted pecans

Put the pastry lid on top, squidge up the sides to join the two, brush with beaten egg and bake at GM6/200C/400F for 20 mins.

Yum.

Carefully remove them from their little holes with a small offset spatula to a wire rack

and dredge them with icing or caster sugar. You can see in this profile that whilst the bottom of the tin is shallow, the filling is piled up inside.

Speaking of inside… asdjbgfiub…mmm….hgfjuiozsg. Sorry, had a mouthful.

Sweet, sticky, nutty (reminds me a bit of pecan pie, but in a more natural way). Moreish. Not Moorish (although, with the spices…), but very more-ish.

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Date and Pecan Pies

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250g dates, stoned and halved
1/4 tsp cinnamon
scrape of nutmeg

1/2 cup pecans

Place the dates in a small saucepan, half cover with cold water, put the lid on and bring to the boil.
Remove the lid and reduce heat to low. Simmer for around 15 mins, stirring as necessary.

Meanwhile, heat a small frying pan. Add the pecans to the dry pan. Stirring and tossing them, allow them to toast until bronzed and fragrant.
Spread out on a large plate to cool. Once cool, chop into small-ish pieces, but don’t reduce them to crumbs.

Once the dates are softened and looking like a paste, add the cinnamon and nutmeg. Be mean with the spices.
Check the date paste is at a consistency you like – if it’s too coarse, whizz it with a hand blender to puree it further. Remove to a bowl to cool.

It’s yours to do with as you wish now. It would be gorgeous stirred into a thick, creamy yogurt – maybe even as a sweet dip?

Or, you could make little pies with it using the shortbread pastry

Fill the lined tin with a spoonful of the date paste and a sprinkle of the pecans.

Pop a pastry lid on top, brush with beaten egg and bake at GM6/200C/400F for 20 mins.

Remove from the tin with a small offset spatula and cool on a wire rack. Dredge with caster or icing sugar.

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.

And it was reduced (it’s posing with its friend, the pudding rice).

I don’t buy it as a rule, because with the amount of coffee we drink, we would surely be propelled to alarming proportions if we went through that stuff the way we go through semi-skimmed, but one lonely bottle. I couldn’t bear to contemplate its fate if someone else bought it.
It was worth more than a gluttonous sloshing over some cornflakes.
So I had a chat with it, give it a name and brought it home.
The boy on the checkout started talking about philosophy and the economy, so all in all, quite a weird shopping experience.

So I got out my beloved ovenproof le Creuset and gave it a good buttering.

Into that I flung 3.5oz pudding rice and 3.5 tblsp caster sugar.

Then the milk. Glug, glug, glugged that over.
Then to the nutmeg. I love nutmeg and I love its little grater with the storage bit in the top for the nutmeg.

It was my Grandad’s. I’m thinking either nutmegs have increased dramatically in size since this was created, or they found out after the first lot came off the presses that there was no nutmeg in the world that would fit in there until half its face had been shaved off, but they thought ‘bugger it’ and churned them out anyway.
Tsk.
So I gave that a good rasping over the top, just to try and get it into its little holder on top.

Still tutting, I put it into the oven (GM3/160C/325F) for an hour. Then I went upstairs and doused the bathroom in limelite and Ian came upstairs to ask me a) why the kitchen was so hot and b) why the timer was beeping.
So I patiently explained that it was hot because the top oven was on and that I was cooking a rice pudding.
Alex then asked what ‘that delicious smell was?’ and its a miracle I actually got past this Spanish inquisition to stir the rice pudding. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I stirred it, then reduced the heat to GM2/150C/300F and put it in for another hour.
Look. Bronzed and billowing,

but underneath, creamy, glistening and unctuous.

About as traditional a British pudding as you get. Treat yourself. The milk is worth it.

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Rice Pudding

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1 litre gold top milk (or whole milk)
3.5 oz pudding rice
3.5 tblsp caster sugar
nutmeg, to scrape over the pudding

Preheat the oven to GM3/160C/325F
Butter an ovenproof dish (mine measures 10″x7″ and is 2″ deep)
Put the pudding rice and sugar into it and pour the milk over. Lightly stir to combine a little.
Scrape a nutmeg over the top to give a good covering.

Put into the oven for 1 hr. Stir.
Reduce the heat to GM2/150C/300F and cook for another hour.

Remove from oven, allow to cool a little before serving. Can also be enjoyed cold.

For a smaller amount (why?), the quantities are:
1 pint (20 fl oz) milk
2oz pudding rice
2 tblsp sugar

NB. The UK pint = 20 fl oz
The US pint = 16 floz