I don’t often do cake-y things – I don’t fancy myself as either a cake or pastry cook – but today was an exception. I tried making something really simple: Bread Pudding. No, not Bread and Butter Pudding, that’s something entirely different, where you cook buttered slices of bread with fruit and what is essentially a custard, and I’m not a fan.

Bread pudding also uses up an excess of bread, with dried fruit, but is effectively a cake. And it is very forgiving, which as regular readers know is something we like as we tend to make things up as we go along.

This is (roughly) what I did.

Ingredients

• 300g white bread (without the crusts)
• 300g mixed dried fruit
• 1tbsp mixed spice (be generous)
• ½tbsp ground mace
• 360ml milk
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 90g soft brown sugar (or muscovado), plus a little for dusting
• zest 1 lemon
• 80g butter, melted
• 50ml Amaretto or similar liqueur (again be generous)

Method

1. Pour the liqueur over the dried fruit and leave to marinade.
2. Tear the bread into pieces and put in a mixing bowl with the milk. Leave for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile mix the sugar, spices and lemon zest. Beat the eggs.
4. Butter and line a cake tin.
5. Heat the oven to 180°/160° fan/gas 4.
6. When the 30 minutes is up, melt the butter.
7. Now mix all the ingredients into the bread, being sure to mix thoroughly. Pour the mix into the cake tin, smooth it over and dust with a little extra sugar.
8. Bake for about 75-90 minutes until a skewer comes out hot, the pudding is firm but springy, and golden on top. (Cover with foil if the top is crisping too fast.)
9. Leave to cool somewhat before lifting from the tin and dividing into portions. Dust with icing or caster sugar if desired.
10. Eat hot or warm as a pudding with custard; warm or cold as cake.

Notes

1. I used a 20cm square, shallow tin and this quantity only half filled it and came out about 3cm thick. Double the quantity if you want a thicker result, but it’ll probably need slightly longer in the oven.
2. The 20cm tin size cuts into 9 acceptable portions.
3. Use whatever spices you fancy or have to hand, although mixed spice is the right balance for me.
4. The addition of 50-100g candied peel would be good.
5. I’m going to experiment with adding some flaked almonds or walnut pieces to the mix for some variety of texture.
6. The mix should be quite wet but not slushy; if you think it is too dry add a splash more liqueur or brandy.