Bread and Butter Pudding
Day-old bread buttered, layered with tea-soaked sultanas and left to drink a vanilla custard for half an hour before it goes in the water bath.
- Prep
- 20m
- Cook
- 45m
- Waiting
- 40m
- Total
- 1h 45m
- Serves
- 6
- Effort
- Easy
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 400 g | Warm the custard base to just below a simmer 8m Warm, not hot. Boiling it scrambles the eggs before they get to the dish. | Pour the warm custard over the layered bread 4m | Soak 30 minutes, pressing the bread down twice 30m Skip this and the custard sets around dry bread instead of inside it. | Bake at 160°C / 325°F in a water bath for 45 minutes 45m The tops of the bread should stay proud of the custard so they crisp. | |
| 200 g | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 80 g | |||||
| 1 tsp | |||||
| 8 slices | Butter the bread, cut into triangles and layer with the fruit 8m Overlap them like roof tiles so every slice has an exposed edge. | ||||
| 60 g | |||||
| 75 g | |||||
| 1 orange | |||||
| 2 tbsp | |||||
-
Warm the custard base to just below a simmer
8m- whole milk 400 g
- double cream 200 g
- eggs 3
- egg yolks 2
- caster sugar 80 g
- vanilla extract 1 tsp
Warm, not hot. Boiling it scrambles the eggs before they get to the dish.
-
Butter the bread, cut into triangles and layer with the fruit
8m- white bread 8 slices
- unsalted butter 60 g
- sultanas 75 g
- orange zest 1 orange
Overlap them like roof tiles so every slice has an exposed edge.
-
Pour the warm custard over the layered bread
4m- from 1 Warm the custard base to just below a simmer
- from 2 Butter the bread, cut into triangles and layer with the fruit
-
Soak 30 minutes, pressing the bread down twice
30m- from 3 Pour the warm custard over the layered bread
Skip this and the custard sets around dry bread instead of inside it.
-
Bake at 160°C / 325°F in a water bath for 45 minutes
45m- from 4 Soak 30 minutes, pressing the bread down twice
- demerara sugar 2 tbsp
The tops of the bread should stay proud of the custard so they crisp.
Why stale bread is the right bread
Fresh crumb is already saturated, its starch granules swollen with water, so it has nowhere to put the custard and turns to paste. Staling is retrogradation — the starch recrystallises and squeezes water out — which leaves a drier, more rigid crumb that soaks up liquid and keeps its shape while doing it. The custard itself sets at around 80°C, and the water bath is what stops the dish edges racing past that and going grainy.
Notes
- Butter the bread, not the dish. The fat waterproofs each slice just enough that it absorbs custard slowly rather than dissolving.
- Demerara on top, not caster. The larger crystals survive the bake as crunch.
- Brioche or panettone works, but drop the sugar to 60 g.