Alphabetic Recipes T — Traditional Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe

Today we have a classic British recipe for a classic traditional dessert of buttered bread and dried fruit baked in a home-made custard base.

Today's is the twenty-third entry of my new series of Alphabetic recipes. Each day for the next month and more, I will be adding a new recipe linked to a different letter of the alphabet. As I collect recipes from all over the globe, and have lots of Welsh recipes, I am going to use a blend of the Welsh and English alphabets:

A | B | C | D | E | F | Ff | G | H | I | J | K | L | Ll | M | N | O | P | Q | R | Rh | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

so there will be 30 entries in total. As today is the twenty-third day in this series I am providing a recipe starting with the letter 'T'. This is a traditional recipe from Britain for a classic leftovers dish of bread slices that are buttered, cut into small pieces, arranged in a baking dish and cooked in a custard base.

Traditional Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe

This is a traditional British recipe for classic pudding of layered slices of bread with currants or sultanas baked in a simple milk and egg custard.

Ingredients:


16 slices of bread (or more, depending on the size of your dish)
butter, softened
100g currants or sultanas
50g sugar
900ml milk
3 eggs
freshly-grated nutmeg

Method:



Take the bread and butter each slice liberally on one side only (removing the crusts is up to you). Now quarter each slice of bread diagonally into triangles. Arrange a layer of the buttered bread triangles in the base of an oven-proof baking dish (overlap them slightly) then sprinkle some of the currants (or sultanas) over the top.

Arrange another layer of bread slices on top then scatter over more fruit. Continue this layering process until the bread is all used up, finishing with a few of the dried fruit.

Pour the milk into a pan, gently bring to a boil and immediately take off the heat. Crack the eggs into a heat-proof bowl and beat them with the grated nutmeg. Add the sugar and beat into the egg mix until dissolved.

Now, whilst whisking briskly and constantly add the milk as a slow, steady, stream to the meat mixture. Pass the resultant custard through a fine-meshed sieve into a jug. Pour this custard over the layered bread and fruit mixture. Set aside to soak for 20 minutes then scatter some more sugar over the top of the dish and add a little more freshly-grated nutmeg.

Transfer the dish in an oven pre-heated to 150ºC and bake for about 60 minutes, or until the top is golden and the custard has set.

Serve hot, accompanied by custard or cream.

As a variant, top the buttered bread with a little marmalade. This gives a delicious orangey tang. Instead of bread you can use brioche or even fruited tea breads. At Christmas, this is excellent when made with leftover panettone. It can even be made with thinly-sliced stollen.

For links to a whole range of leftovers-based recipes, see the Celtnet Leftovers recipes page.

The recipe presented here is based, with permission, on the Celtnet Traditional Bread and Butter Pudding recipe.

This recipe is brought to you in conjunction with the Celtnet Guide to Recipes Beginning with 'T'.

Find more British recipes on the Recipes from the British Isles page of this blog.

If you enjoyed this recipe, why not go over to the Celtnet site to download your completely FREE eBook of 45 Halloween recipes.