Showing posts with label old fashioned puddings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old fashioned puddings. Show all posts
I think bread pudding has to be one of the most comforting desserts you can enjoy, especially during the winter months, when the thermometer is dipping down low and we want something to warm us up.
Often in day gone by it would be a common dessert served for school dinners. This was not only because it was fairly economical, but also because it made great use of stale bread so that there was no waste.
One of the nice things about it is that you can use just about any bread or even stale cake to make it. Croissants, brioche, French bread, etc. even donuts!
Yes, you heard that right, donuts! And it doesn't matter what kind of donuts you have, so long as they are plain. They can be yeast or they can be cake. Today I happened to have some stale cake donuts and so I used them with excellent results.
If you don't have stale donuts, just take some donuts and leave them sitting out on the countertop over night. They will be perfect for this pudding at that point.
You will be slicing the donuts in half horizontally through the middle and filling them with jam. You can use any kind of jam which you enjoy. Today I used cherry.
But any kind of jam will work, even lemon curd. Its whatever you happen to enjoy or have on hand.
I love these old fashioned types of puddings. They never go out of fashion. As enjoyable today in the early 21st century as they were in the early 20th or 19th, or dare I say it, 18th.
They are timeless. Do note that this is a small batch recipe. To feed more than three people simply double the amount of ingredients.
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE DONUT & JAM BREAD PUDDING
Its simple really.
- 3 stale donuts (either cake or yeast) (cake will give you a softer finish)
- 1 large free range egg, plus 1 egg yolk
- pinch salt
- 3 tsp your favorite jam (today I used cherry)
- 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
- 1 1/4 cups (300ml) whole milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- few drops almond extract (goes wonderfully with fruit)
- 2 or 3 TBS flaked almonds
- sugar to sprinkle
- boiling water
Seriously nothing is more comforting than this pudding.
I can hear people thinking, who has leftover or stale donuts? Well, if you happen to live by yourself as I do, or if you are only two people in your household, then it is quite likely that you do!
We can get these lovely donuts here in Nova Scotia. Mrs Dunster's donuts and they are lovely. Just like the ones grandma used to bake, but they come in a bag holding one dozen, and that's how I end up with stale donuts.
I know . . . I should just freeze them!
HOW TO MAKE DONUT & JAM BREAD PUDDING
Seriously nothing could be easier. You really cannot mess this up, unless you make the mistake of overbaking it.
You want to take it out of the oven while there is still a slight jiggle in the center, but even if you happen to over cook it, it will still be deliciously edible.
Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. You will need a small casserole dish large enough to hold the doughnuts, halved snugly together, and a larger casserole dish large enough to hold the smaller dish. Butter the small one.
Whisk the eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla and almond together in a bowl.
Warm the milk over medium heat in a small saucepan just until there are bubbles around the edges. (You can also do this in the microwave, about 1 1/2 minutes.)
Slowly whisk the warm milk into the egg and sugar mixture until well amalgamated.
Cut the donuts in half through the middle horizontally. Sandwich each donut back together with a tsp of jam in the middle and then cut into two crosswise. Place the donut arches into the smaller of the casserole dishes, fitting them in next to each other. Mine fit into my dish in two rows of three halves.
Pour the egg custard over top. Place the filled casserole dish into the larger casserole dish and pour in boiling water making sure that it comes halfway up the side of the smaller dish.
Sprinkle the flaked almonds over top and then sprinkle with a bit of granulated sugar.
Pop the whole lot into the preheated oven and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the custard is set. (A knife inserted near the center should come out clean.)
Sprinkle with some icing sugar and serve warm.
And that's it. Your dessert is ready. This is beautiful served warm. I like to dust the top with just a bit of icing sugar to pretty it up. Its soft and indulgent, rich even.
The outside is a bit crisp both from where the donuts crisp up a bit on top and from the flaked almonds. The middles nice and sweet from the jam.
Of course the British way to eat this is spooned into a bowl with some cream or custard poured around and drizzled over top. In North America you might be more inclined to enjoy it with a scoop of ice cream.
The fact is, you will enjoy it. No matter what you spoon over top, even if you don't spoon anything on at all. Yummity yum!!
Donut & Jam Bread Pudding
Yield: 3
Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 45 Min
This is comfort food pure and simple and a great way to use up stale donuts.
Ingredients
- 3 stale donuts (either cake or yeast)
- 1 large free range egg, plus 1 egg yolk
- pinch salt
- 3 tsp your favorite jam (I used cherry)
- 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
- 1 1/4 cups (300ml) whole milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- few drops almond extract
- 2 or 3 TBS flaked almonds
- sugar to sprinkle
- boiling water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. You will need a small casserole dish large enough to hold the doughnuts, halved snugly together, and a larger casserole dish large enough to hold the smaller dish. Butter the small one.
- Whisk the eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla and almond together in a bowl.
- Warm the milk over medium heat in a small saucepan just until there are bubbles around the edges. (You can also do this in the microwave, about 1 1/2 minutes.)
- Slowly whisk the warm milk into the egg and sugar mixture until well amalgamated.
- Cut the donuts in half through the middle horizontally. Sandwich each donut back together with a tsp of jam in the middle and then cut into two crosswise. Place the donut arches into the smaller of the casserole dishes, fitting them in next to each other. Mine fit into my dish in two rows of three halves.
- Pour the egg custard over top. Place the filled casserole dish into the larger casserole dish and pour in boiling water making sure that it comes halfway up the side of the smaller dish.
- Sprinkle the flaked almonds over top and then sprinkle with a bit of granulated sugar.
- Pop the whole lot into the preheated oven and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the custard is set. (A knife inserted near the center should come out clean.)
- Sprinkle with some icing sugar and serve warm.
Thank you!!
I had a bit of stale bread that I wanted to use before it went moldy the other day and so I decided to make a Bread & Butter Pudding. Bread & Butter Pudding is a real favorite dessert in the UK. I don't think I had ever really had it before I moved over there.
Its a pudding made with buttered bread and custard. An old fashioned bread and butter pudding will have raisins in it, and not much else. You will sometimes see bread and butter pudding with jam.
That is one of my favorite versions. Little bread and jam sandwiches baked in a rich custard. Its really yummy!
I actually have quite a few bread pudding recipes on the blog. You can access them from here. There is something there which is sure to please everyone and every taste!
I thought I would try something a little bit different today. First of all I wanted a bread pudding that wasn't overly large. So I downsized a pudding I found in a cookbook I have by Martha Stewart called Dinner at Home.
Its a great book, filled with lots of yummy menus and recipes. Her recipe called for rum. Rum is not something I keep in my house because I don't really drink alcohol, although I do cook with it from time to time.
I used to keep small bottles of quite a few things in the larder to cook with, small bottles of liqueurs etc. I have had to replace so many things here, setting myself back up again, that buying alcohol has been low on my priority list, so no cooking alcohol for now.
I decided I would use Ginger Syrup in it's place. Some of you may recall me making my own preserved ginger in syrup last December. You can access that recipe here.
Its actually very easy to make and its a great ingredient to have on hand. You will find millions of uses for both the knobs of preserved ginger and for the syrup. Its lovely. Sometimes I will add a touch of it to a lemon glaze when I am glazing a gingerbread or some such.
Its really delicious and pieces of the ginger are really nice as decorations on cakes, or even in cakes. I highly recommend you make some.
I felt that some of the syrup would make a great substitution for the rum, which meant I also had to cut back on the sugar. I decided to use honey instead of sugar.
Honey and ginger are perfect partners. Add some lemon into the mix and you have a trinity of beautiful flavors, and one very tasty bread pudding!
Don't worry if you can't find or don't have preserved ginger. You can just use extra honey in it's place and add some powdered dried ginger in it's place. It will work find.
I added some lemon into the pudding along with the vanilla in the way of lemon extract. I also introduced a bit of grated lemon zest. You won't be using any refined sugar at all, except for a bit of demerara sugar sprinkled on top before baking.
For even more ginger flavor, I added a small quantity of chopped candied ginger. I so love candied ginger. I sometimes sit and eat a piece of it instead of a sweetie, which totally satisfies my sweet tooth in a fabulously tasty way.
Have I mentioned how much I love ginger??? Well now you know! I love LOVE ginger.
I also cut the recipe in half to serve only two people, which it does very generously. Her recipe said that it fed four with leftovers. Mine feeds two generously.
I used a rustic white bread. Some of a Stale boule I had in the fridge. I cut off all of the crust and then buttered it lightly with some softened butter. (The birds enjoyed the crusts)
I then cut the bread into cubes. She had cut hers into quarters, but it is kind of hard to cut slices of a boule into quarters or triangles.
I thought cubes would work well and they did. I mixed the buttered bread with the pieces of candied ginger.
The custard which is poured over top is made by beating together some whole milk, cream, and the other liquid ingredients, along with the lemon zest.
You just pour it evenly over top of the bread mixture, and then you just leave it to sit for an hour. Don't skip this step.
That sitting time allows for the bread to soak up as much of that custard as it can, which results in a pudding with a lovely light and creamy texture.
Once the hour is up you can bake the pudding. I sprinkled some demerara sugar over top just before baking, for a bit of a sparkle and a tiny bit of sweet.
There is no sugar in the pudding itself, just the honey and the ginger syrup.
It gets baked for about a half an hour in a hot oven. If you think it is getting browned too quickly on top, cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil. It works a charm.
I had always thought that with foil you wanted the shiny side away from the food, and dull side in. Actually it is the other way around according to my sister.
In all truth, it probably doesn't matter much.
This soufflés up really nicely in the oven. It comes out all nice and puffy. It is done when a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. If its not quite done, pop it back in for a few more minutes.
Easy peasy lemon squeasy as they say!
Martha served hers simply with some strawberries which she macerated in their own juices with a bit of sugar. I thought that was perfect.
I had some lovely berries that a lady brought to my door that were beautiful and extremely fresh. Picked just that morning. They tasted lovely.
I knew they would go really well with this pudding. I simply washed them, cut them in half and tossed them with a bit of sugar, leaving them to sit for about 10 minutes.
You could also toss them wit some ginger syrup if you wanted to. Its up to you really.
This was a beautiful pudding really. Crunchy on the outside. Soft and creamy on the inside, with lovely lemon and ginger flavours.
Tiny bits of candied ginger, strewn throughout and a few bits on the top that got a bit crunchy. Just lovely. I think I may have found my new favorite bread and butter pudding! I think you are going to love it too!!
Ginger & Honey Bread & Butter Pudding with Strawberries
Yield: serves 2
Prep time: 1 H & 10 MCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 1 H & 40 M
Make sure you soak the bread for at least an hour prior to baking. This delicious rich pudding serves two generously.
Ingredients
- 2 large free range eggs
- 1/2 cup (120ml) whole milk
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream
- 2 TBS liquid honey (pick one with a nice flavor)
- 1 TBS ginger syrup (if you can't find it, use an additional TBS of honey) (from a jar of preserved ginger)
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp lemon extract
- the grated zest of half a lemon
- 2 TBS chopped candied ginger
- pinch of salt
- 4 thin slices of day old rustic white bread, crusts removed
- softened butter to spread
- 1 TBS demerara sugar to sprinkle on top
For the berries:
- 1/2 pint fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled and cut in half
- 1 TBS sugar
Instructions
- Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, honey, ginger syrup, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon zest, and salt.
- Butter a small rectangular casserole dish which holds two cups.
- Butter your bread slices on one side and cut into cubes. Toss them together with the chopped candied ginger and pop them into the prepared casserole dish.
- Pour the egg mixture over top. Let stand at room temperature for one hour.
- Preheat the oven to 400*F/200*C/ gas mark 6.
- Sprinkle the demerara sugar over top of the casserole and then pop it into the oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden and set. Remove from the oven.
- Combine the prepared strawberries with the sugar and leave to macerate for about 10 minutes, tossing occasionally.
- Serve the bread pudding warm in dishes with some of the berries on the side. Delicious!
Notes:
Ginger syrup is the syrup which surrounds preserved ginger in the jar. It is thick and syrupy and has a lovely ginger flavor. If you cannot find it, just use honey in it's place and perhaps add 1/4 tsp of powdered ginger to the egg mixture.
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I found myself with half a loaf of stale white bread this week. I had bought it to make sandwiches with the other day and it didn't get all used up. I don't like waste so I thought I would make one of Todd's favourite desserts. Bread and Butter Pudding. He doesn't get it very often because most of the time we use whole wheat bread with a bit of rye in it and that doesn't translate very well into a bread and butter pudding. Although having said that I have never really tried. Food for thought there folks, food for thought . . .
I think Bread and Butter Pudding has to be one of the easiest puddings to make. If you can butter bread, you can make bread and butter pudding!
You want your bread to be quite stale. (NOT moldy.) If it is a tiny bit dry, so much the better. That allows it to soak up the custard better.
Of course you can make it just with slices of buttered bread, but why not add something special and make it with buttered jam sandwiches . . . apricot jam sandwiches!!
Having said that any jam would work. Strawberry. Raspberry. Black currant. Blueberry. Cherry. Apricot is especially fine however, plus you have the added bonus of it not dying your pudding an un-godly freakish grey colour.
Other than the setting time for the custard to soak into the bread, it goes together really quickly and is delicious served slightly warm with lashings of double cream. Rich. Delicious. The perfect pud to spoil a husband with on a rainy day.
*Apricot Bread & Butter Pudding*
Serves 4
Serves 4
A delicious bread and butter pudding with the added twist of a layer of sweet apricot jam.
2 TBS softened butter, plus extra for buttering the dish
8 thin slices of sturdy white bread (stale is best)
good quality apricot jam
the grated zest of one lemon
330ml whole milk (1 1/3 cup)
60ml double cream (1/4 cup)
2 large free range eggs
30g caster sugar (2 1/2 TBS)
freshly grated nutmeg
demerara sugar for sprinkling
Butter a 2 pint pie dish with butter. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/Gas mark 4.
Trim the crusts off of the bread and butter each slice on one side. Spread half of the slices thickly with some apricot jam, on the unbuttered side. Put together with the other half of the slices like little jam sandwiches, with the buttered sides showing on the outside of each. Cut each sandwich in half diagonally and then place into the prepared dish.
Place the milk in a pan over low heat. Add the lemon zest. Scald. (Heat just until you see bubbles appearing around the edges. Do not let it boil.) Whisk in the cream.
Break the eggs into a bowl, add the sugar and beat together well. Whisk in the heated milk slowly. Strain the resulting custard into a beaker, then pour this custard over the bread mixture. Let stand for about 30 minutes so that it is absorbed somewhat. Sprinkle with some freshly grated nutmeg and a dusting of demerara sugar.
Place into the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the custard has set and the top is a golden brown. Serve warm.
You know, I really believe that it is the simple things in life which bring us the most joy, don't you? Bon Appetit!
Note - I did dust it with a bit of icing sugar for photography purposes. Its not really necessary to do that.
There is nothing my husband loves more than a steamed pudding. He loves stodge and comfort especially in the Winter months. He feels the cold a lot more than I do. I have my own layer of insulation, haha, something which he is severely lacking. Yes, he is one of those lucky people who can more than look at tasty things and never gain an ounce. I just have to smell them and I gain a pound. Sadly, I do a bit more than smell . . . but that's another story!
My Todd is an old fashioned guy. There is nothing fancy smancy about him. He likes simple things, which is probably why he likes me so much. 😉 There is nothing fancy smancy about me either! And I, too, like simple things. Things like thie simple baked rice pudding please us both on many levels.
Not only is it delicious, but it is very easy to make and well suited to using up that little bit of leftover rice from last night's dinner.
It is just the right size for just two people, which means it is just the right size for our wee family, or for a very hungry Todd.
No, it is not pretty, but you could certainly dress it u with a dab of jam if you wished or a dollop of softly whipped cream. It is very comforting . . .
Almost nursery food . . . warm hug food. Little nuggets of rice encircled by rich milky custard. I love the skin on top. It's my favourire bit. This is perfect food for the winter blues. Enjoy . . .
*Baked Rice Pudding For Two*
Serves 2
Preheat the oven to 165*C/325*F/ gas mark 3. Butter a small 5 inch square baking dish. Set aside.
Whisk together the egg and sugar, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Whisk in the milk and vanilla. Stir in the milk and rice. Pour into the prepared dish.
Place the dish with the pudding in it into a larger pan and pour hot water into the pan until it comes halfway up the sides of the dish holding the rice pudding. Bake in the preheated oven for 55 minutes or until golden and set. Serve warm with or without whipped cream.
There were years when I had a hard time cooking for just two people, especially having had to cook for a large family and then my employers etc. for a number of years. I am getting used to it now, and am becoming very good at it. You could of course double this if you wished, but if you are only two, then this is the perfect winter pud for you. Bon Appetit!
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