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Eggs and Bread
Take a penny loaf, soak it in a quart of milk for two hours, or till the bread is soft. Put to it two table-spoonfuls of orange-flower water or rose-water; sweeten it, and grate into it a little nutmeg. Take a dish and butter the bottom of it, break in as many eggs as will cover the bottom, pour in the bread and milk, beat all briskly with a fork, and bake in a well-heated oven for half an hour.
A plain baked bread custard from the era before vanilla extract was standard, and one of the few recipes that asks you to mix the batter in the buttered dish itself.
- A penny loafBread of this kind was sold at a fixed price with the weight varying according to the cost of grain, so a penny loaf had no constant size. For a modern cook, use about 8 oz of stale white bread, crusts and all, torn up so it soaks evenly.
- Quart of milkAn imperial quart is about 4 3/4 US cups; a US quart of 4 cups is close enough here. The two-hour soak is not padding, since dry bread that has not fully softened will stay in gritty lumps once beaten.
- Flower watersOrange-flower water and rose water are still sold, often in Middle Eastern groceries, but modern bottles vary enormously in strength. Two tablespoons of a concentrated brand will taste of soap; start with two teaspoons and taste the cold mixture before baking.
- Sweeten itNo quantity is given. About 1/3 to 1/2 cup of sugar suits a quart of milk and 8 oz of bread, stirred in while the bread soaks so it dissolves.
- As many eggs as will cover the bottomFor a 9-inch or 2-quart dish that means 4 to 6 whole eggs. Fewer and the pudding will not set; many more and it turns firm and sliceable rather than creamy.
- Well-heated ovenThe original wording suggests a hot oven, but 350F is the safer modern choice for this mixture. A custard baked much hotter curdles and weeps at the edges before the middle has set, and this one has no water bath to protect it.
- Doneness rather than timeHalf an hour is optimistic for a full quart of milk; expect 40 to 55 minutes. It is done when the centre reaches about 175F and a knife an inch from the middle comes out clean, with a slight wobble remaining.
- NutmegGrate it fresh. Pre-ground nutmeg loses most of its aroma within months and this pudding has almost nothing else in it.
- YieldServes six as a pudding, warm or cold, with cream or a spoonful of jam.
Bread, milk, eggs and sugar baked together is one of the oldest thrift dishes in English cookery, a way of using bread past its best before commercial breadcrumbs or packaged custard powder existed. The flavouring is the period marker: rose water and orange-flower water were the standard sweet perfumes of English and French baking from the medieval period onward, and only began to give way to vanilla in the nineteenth century as extract became cheap and widely available. The measurement by "penny loaf" reflects a time when bread prices were regulated rather than left to the baker, the price fixed while the weight varied with the cost of grain. Cassell's, compiled for Victorian middle-class households with servants and a coal range, keeps such older formulas alongside more elaborate French work, and files this one among the plain eggs-and-bread instruction that a kitchen learner would master first.