Easy Recipe for Bread and Butter Pudding
Traditional British Family Dessert That Is Cheap and Delicious
Jan 18, 2009
Bread and Butter Pudding is one of Britain's oldest traditional family desserts. In 1845, Eliza Acton in her book Modern Cookery for Private Families provides one of the earliest recipes for this easy to make dessert. It is almost identical to the basic recipe below.
Eliza’s book was the first recipe collection to contain a list of ingredients for each recipe as well as instructions on how to prepare the dish. The book was a great success selling 60,000 copies and earning Eliza £900 (US$ 1314) Although Eliza Acton died in 1859, Modern Cookery for Private Families remained a popular book and was still in print up until 1908.
This recipe for cheap and delicious Bread and Butter Pudding has also remained popular and is a great way to use up stale bread, although fresh bread can also be used. An ideal dessert following something like roasted vegetables as a main course.
Bread and Butter Pudding
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- 8 slices of brown or white bread (traditionally white bread is used)
- 3 cups of milk
- 3 beaten eggs
- 113g / 4 oz brown sugar
- 85g / 3oz sultanas
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Butter (enough to butter the bread and to grease the baking dish)
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 170C / 325F
- Grease a 5cm / 2inches deep oven proof baking dish.
- Thinly butter each of the slices of bread on both sides, covering the whole slice right to the corners and cut into 4 triangles.
- Place a layer the buttered bread on the bottom of the dish, slightly overlapping each triangle.
- Sprinkle with sultanas and sugar and make another layer. Continue in this way until the bread is finished. Sprinkle fewer sultanas on the top, but do give a generous sprinkling of sugar.
- Beat together the milk, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla and salt and pour the mixture over bread.
- Allow to stand for 30 minutes so that the bread can absorb the liquid.
- Place in the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. The top should be golden brown
- Serve with home-made yogurt, ice cream, cream or custard. If the cooking time is reduced, the bread and butter pudding stays a little moist, which some people prefer.
Variations With Traditional Bread and Butter Pudding
- spread the bread with marmalade or jam
- add sliced banana with a teaspoon of honey between the layers of bread
- place thinly sliced cooking apples, sprinkled with sugar and dried ginger, at the bottom of the dish before the first layer of bread
- add roughly chopped walnuts and dates to the sultanas
- sprinkle toasted almonds on top before serving
- use panettone instead of bread.
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