Bread pudding

Sitting down at morning tea today to tuck into bread pudding from Black Star Pastry in Newtown, Sydney, (see image below) I thought a short note to celebrate this simple but satisfying pud was due in on this blog.

Here's bits of the delightful entry on bread puddings from The Oxford Companion to Food (edited by the much missed Alan Davidson):

Bread puddings an important category...It is safe to assume that from the very distant past cooks have sometimes turned stale bread into a sweet pudding, if only by soaking it in milk, sweetening it by one means or another, and baking the result. The addition of some fat, preferably in the form of butter, and something like currants is all that is needed to move this frugal dish into the category of treats, and this is what has ensured its survival in the repertoire, even of cooks who never have stale bread on their hands...this same dish can also be made with something more exotic than plain bread, for example, brioche, pannetone, slices of plain cake etc., and can be enlivened by judicious spicing or by reinforcing the currants with plumper sultanas and mixed peel. But such elaborations must be kept under strict control, so that what is essentially a simple pudding does not lost its character under the weight of sophisticated additions.

I love his insistence on not elaborating the dish so much as to lose its simplicity. Certainly my mother, whose cooking skills focused on desserts and casseroles (one day I shall do a blog on macaroni and tuna casserole), kept hers simple, drawing no doubt on those of her youth produced by her mother and her mother's mother in the tradition of Sri Lankan Burgher women and as codified in Hilda Deutrom's Ceylon Daily News Cookery Book, first published in 1929 and never out of print since. Here is Hilda's recipe:

Bread and butter pudding
slices of bread and butter
sugar to taste
2 oz sultanas
1 pint milk
2 03 3 eggs
vanilla or almond flavouring


Butter a pie-dish, put in a layer of thin bread and butter, sprinkle sugar and sultanas, then another layer of bread and butter, sugar and sultanas, and so on until the dish is about half full. Beat up the eggs, add the milk, a little sugar or flavouring, mix well together and pour over the bread in the pie-dish. Allow the pudding to stand for about one hour until the bread is thoroughly soaked, press down the top slices so that they may get soaked too. Put into a moderate oven and bake for about 40 minutes or until nicely browned.


Mum used to use sliced white bread, crusts and all, and sultanas with a little vanilla for flavouring. She baked it in a deep, oblong, clear sided pyrex dish and I was always fascinated by the view of the brown crusted sides studded here and there with dark brown/black sultanas. We would have it hot when it was first made but there was always enough left over for a cold slice the following days. It was usually dressed with golden syrup, an elaboration that I am sure Davidson would not object to. When I make it these days I dress it with kitul, a palm sugar syrup that is a staple in a Sri Lankan cupboard.

My friend Margaret makes her bread pudding with brioche and cream. Black Star's bread base is a secret - well I could ask Chris but it's better to have some mystery to it (I suspect it is brioche). It's baked in small square cups (sort of like very mini popcorn containers) and comes with a serve of pouring cream flavoured with vanilla seeds. Again, I think these stay nicely within Davidson's prescription for simplicity.