Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Bread & butter pudding

When it's June in Australia, it's warm pudding time again! And a great way to use up stale bread is in a bread and butter pudding. I like this particular recipe because it makes a warm custard you pour over the bread, and it even has a custard flavour once baked. Simple yet delicious!


INGREDIENTS:

6 or more silces white bread
50g softened butter
1 cup sultanas
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

~ custard ~
2 1/2 cups milk
1 cup cream
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 medium to large eggs



I like to keep my crusts on, but feel free to remove them if you prefer. Then spread butter on each slice and cut into quartered triangles Place a layer of bread (butter side down) in a large rectangular dish. Sprinkle all the sultanas and then add another layer of bread as above.

Set aside and then make your custard by combining all but the eggs, into a medium saucepan. Bring to the boil but do not allow to boil - remove from heat as soon as it does. Now whisk your eggs in a large bowl, and gradually add hot mixture to the eggs. Because this process requires constant whisking, I like to wrangle a helper to do the pouring for me. Or use a mechanical mixer.

Once custard is made, pour the warm mixture over the bread and sprinkle with nutmeg.

To cook the pudding, requires a water bath which can be made by placing the pudding dish inside a larger one, and gradually adding boiling water to it, until it comes halfway up the sides of the pudding dish.

Bake about 45-50 minutes at 160 degrees celcius in a fan-forced oven (180 conventional). Be sure to remove pudding from the water bath - take care not to burn yourself and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Very yummilliscious! Tastes great cold too.

By the way, the picture above was taken after we ate half the pudding between the three of us.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Baked rice pudding

There are many ways to make rice pudding. Cooked slowly on a stove-top, it has a delicious creamy texture. If you're lazy like me though and happen to like the caramalised topping from being slowly baked in the oven, then this recipe is perfect!



INGREDIENTS:


400mls coconut cream
600mls milk
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 cup of rice
1 teaspoon vanilla
nutmeg






Mix the cream, milk and vanilla in a jug to make a total liquid quantity of a litre.

In a casserole dish (at least 6 cup capacity) place the sugar and rice together. Pour liquid over. Mix lightly then sprinkle top with nutmeg.

Bake at 160 degrees celcius in a fan-forced oven (180 conventional) for 60 minutes.

A family favourite for winter desserts!

Food stash

This is just my collection of reliable recipes which I use on a regular basis. Normally I would type the recipe on my computer, print it out and stash it in a folder. In the interests of saving paper, ink and electricity - not to mention my printer hasn't worked for months - I thought I'd try a cyber stash of recipes instead.

Let the food stash commence!