A firm favourite in my family served warm or cold, my wife’s aka Nanny’s bread pudding is the best.
Celebrating Heritage British Food & Cooking
Mind, you have to be quick to get some as it gets eaten usually before it has a chance to get cold!
It’s Not Bread and Butter Pudding
Do not confuse this with bread and butter pudding which is something quite different.
Rationing Thrift
This is one of those recipes whose origin comes from the 1940s when rationing was introduced in the UK because of wartime shortages.
Housewives needed to find ways of making food that was filling but used few of the available ingredients. it’s an easy way to use up stale bread.
Using stale bread this way is nothing new. Food historians can trace it back to as early as the 11th century.
Try Bread Pudding With Custard
Delicious hot or cold, my favourite way to enjoy it is warm with a generous dollop of custard on top.
Video Recipe
Cheryl over at What’s For Tea shows you how to make bread pudding.
If you like these heritage puddings why not try spotted dick with custard?
Nanny’s Bread Pudding
Ingredients
- 225 g Old bread brown or white , crusts removed
- 300 ml Milk
- 225 g Dried fruits sultanas , raisins , currants
- 60 g Suet
- 2 tsp Mixed spice
- 60 g Soft brown sugar you can use ordinary caster sugar
- 1 Egg beaten
- Nutmeg grated, optional
- 1 tbsp Granulated sugar
- Butter for greasing
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4
- Break the bread into small pieces and put into a bowl
- Add all the fruit , brown sugar, suet, egg and spice to the bread and mix really well to combine ( you may need to get your hands in )
- Pour over the milk, mix well with a fork and leave to soak for 30 minutes
- Butter a square or rectangular 30cm non-stick baking tin
- Pour into the prepared tin and flatten the top
- Grate a little nutmeg over the top
- Bake in centre of the oven for 1 – 1½ hrs. If browning too quickly, cover with foil and bake for the remaining time.
- Take out of oven and sprinkle over the granulated sugar
- Leave to cool in the tin
Notes
For a more succulent pudding or if your mixed dried fruit is too dry. Plump them up by rehydrating them before using them in baking.
For a different twist, try plumping the dried fruit up with dark rum, it works a treat!
You may also like one of my other recipes …
BREAD PUDDING: wife just made it. just how i remember it. great recipe ! 👍
Hi Rod,
Glad you liked it.
Richard thankyou…brought up by my Grandparents so most of your recipes I used to make when I was first married 56 years ago…over the years one tends to end up trying different meals and ‘newer recipes’ so gradually fewer and fewer of these recipes I ‘grew up with’ were made.
Finding your site has prompted me to go back many years and start ‘real cooking’ again.
Cornish pasties for supper tonight and making a treacle tart and the bread pudding for over this weekend 👍
I’ll be blaming you fror my weight gains 😇
2 tbsp seems too much spice.
Ooops! Well spotted I missed that one. I’ve corrected that to 2 tsp.
Thanks, Richard
2 tbsp seems too much spice in the bread pudding recipe.
Ooops! Well spotted I missed that one. I’ve corrected that to 2 tsp.
Thanks, Richard
15 cm tin?? That’s tiny? It’s that right? That’s smaller than my hand.
Hi Kate,
It does seem too small doesn’t it? Blame my wife, it was her recipe 😃.
I think a 30cm/12″ tin would be more sensible so I have changed it.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Richard
Had some bread which needed using up so thought I would look for a recipe for bread pudding.
Fantastic!! Just like my Mum used to make many moons ago. It went in next to no time. Son-in-law and grandson loved it and me of course. Thank you Richard.
Hi Vivien,
Glad you all enjoyed it.
Richard
Dear Richard, I grew up in the 40s during the War and I learnt how to make a Bread Pudding from my Grandmother. I have to tell you she didn’t use milk, nutmeg, suet, mixed spice, or an egg, an egg really, it was war time. She used Lard, Cinammon, Lemon juice and lemon peel, sultanas, brown sugar. The bread was soft enough with soaking in water and we used the crusts. I’ve just made one, well it’s in the oven. best one you’ll ever taste. Nick
Hi Nick,
I seem to remember my grandmothers recipe was something similar, again a product of wartime rationing.
This is my late wife’s recipe which our family like.
Whichever recipe you use just enjoy it!