Bread and Butter Pudding

This is a pudding for the evenings when the light goes early and you want the kitchen to do something kind. Late autumn, all winter, the first cold nights in spring when the heating is off but probably shouldn't be. It asks for bread that's slightly past its best, a few raisins, some butter, an egg or two, and the patience to let it sit before it goes in the oven.

Bread and butter pudding was invented because people hated throwing food away. That's the whole story. Stale bread, a bit of milk, whatever dried fruit was in the cupboard, and suddenly dinner has a pudding. I love that about it. The thriftiness is built in. But somewhere along the way it stopped being a necessity and became a choice, which is almost better. Now we make it on purpose, with good bread and proper cream, and it tastes of all the attention we gave it.

The trick, if there is one, is the soak. Thirty minutes minimum. The bread needs time to drink the custard so that when it bakes, the underneath goes silky and set while the tops stay puffed and golden. Rush it and you get dry bread sitting in sweet milk. Wait, and you get something that tastes like it had to be made.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago and the entry just says: bread, butter, custard, Tuesday. That was enough then. It's still enough now.