Food to eat in your PJ’s

Bread and butter pudding is truly the thriftiest of thrifty recipes.  It actually calls for stale bread – how good is that?  This pudding feels like a snuggle under the doona on a rainy day while watching an old movie.  Maybe Titanic. 

Its beauty is in its simplicity; there isn’t a specific recipe so much, just some general directions to follow.  The bread becomes sort of cakey as it’s smothered in a hot custardy sauce. Enough ranting, here’s how to do it.

Will’s Bread & Butter Pudding

In a big bowl, whisk together 1½ cups of milk, 3 eggs, a teaspoon each of nutmeg & cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of vanilla essence, and 1/3 cup sugar.   

Grab a loaf of sliced stale bread (it works best if the bread isn’t too fresh, but not a big deal either way). Butter one side of the bread and place it butter side down in a baking dish. 

Keep doing this until you have one flat layer of bread.  Squeeze over some golden syrup so each piece of bread gets some.  Then sprinkle over some sultanas.  Then pour some of the eggy mixture over the bread so that each piece soaks some of it up. 

Keep layering the bread in this way until you’ve used up the loaf or the dish is almost full.  For the final layer, leave off the sultanas as they tend to burn. 

Now comes the fun part – with your hands, smoosh down the whole mixture so that it pushes together and is all covered in the egg mix. 

Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30-40 mins.  Timing really depends on your oven – you want the crusts of the bread on top to be a bit crispy so just keep an eye on it. 

Serve with cream, ice cream or custard.   This re-heats well for the next few days and tastes especially good in the middle of the night in your PJ’s.  Mmmmmm.

Coming soon....how to make your own crumpets  

* Disclaimer: I put the pic at the bottom today because this really tastes better than it looks.  It's a good dessert to serve up in the kitchen and bring it out ready to eat.