Bread and Butter Pudding

I love bread pudding but, until today, I'd never actually made it myself. It turns out that your basic bread pudding is super easy to make! I'll definitely be making some tweaks and trying different flavour combinations but, as a first attempt, this made for a perfectly acceptable (if somewhat bland) pudding.

Basic Bread and Butter Pudding

Slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 2-4 Tbsp. salted butter, softened¹
• 6-8 thick slices stale bread²
• 2-4 Tbsp. jam (optional)
• 2-4 Tbsp. currants or raisins³
• 1/4-1/2 c. sugar⁴
• 1 Tbsp. lemon zest
• 4 large eggs
• 2 c. whole (3.25%) milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)

Directions

1. Butter the bread¹.
2. Spread (or toss) with jam, if using.
3. If the bread isn't already in small pieces, cut into triangles.
4. Combine currants (or raisins), sugar, and lemon zest.
5. Arrange buttered bread in an ovenproof dish sprinkling in the sugar mixture along the way.
6. Beat the eggs with the milk and vanilla (if using).
7. Pour the egg mixture over the bread and let stand for 30 minutes, periodically pressing the bread down into the liquid.
8. Sprinkle top with more sugar if desired.
9. Bake at 325°F (160°C) for 1 hour.

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¹ In theory you're supposed to butter the slices of bread. In practice, I didn't have slices, I had bits and pieces of crusts and heels. So, rather than trying to spread soft butter on them, I tossed them with some melted butter. It seemed to work pretty well. Although I did have to use more than the 2 Tbsp. called for in the original recipe. ^Back
2 As noted above, I didn't have slices, I had random scraps and chunks of bread. I measured out ~6 cups (with a lot of air space) for this recipe. ^Back
3 The currants were nice, but I would've preferred a) a lot more of them and b) if they'd actually been raisins. ^Back
4 With only a quarter cup of sugar, this pudding was treading the line between sweet and savoury. Possibly this was down to the fact that I was using whole wheat bread. Maybe with white bread 1/4 c. would be enough. I also didn't use jam. If I had, then obviously that would've brought some sweetness to the table, so I might've been able to get away with the smaller amount of sugar. If you're using whole wheat bread and/or you're skipping the jam, I recommend upping the sugar to 1/2 c. to make sure it comes out sweet enough. ^Back