Berry Bread
Take I stale loaf of bread, cut in thin slices and spread with butter. Stew a quantity of any kind of berries (adding some currants or lemon juice to make slightly tart). When soft, sweeten to taste. In a deep dish put a layer of the bread, pour over it a quantity of the boiling mixture, then more bread and fruit until all has been used.
Serve very cold with cream. This simple dish is delightful.
This is a loose, unmoulded summer pudding, and it works best when treated as one: the bread must be soaked while the fruit is boiling hot, then chilled long enough to set.
- The hingePour the fruit on boiling, not warm. Hot syrup drives into the crumb and collapses the slices into a single mass; lukewarm fruit leaves pale dry patches and the layers never bind.
- BreadStale close-crumbed white bread; the recipe asks for thin slices, so cut them thin (up to about 1/2 inch), and take the crusts off if you prefer. A modern soft sandwich loaf turns to paste and a very open-crumbed sourdough or ciabatta lets the juice run straight through.
- ButterThe butter probably does less for richness than for slowing the soaking, so the slices keep some shape. Spread it thinly on one side only. The recipe layers in a deep dish and is not turned out.
- "A quantity of berries"The original says one stale loaf and leaves the fruit open. Scaled down for a deep dish of about 1 1/2 quarts, roughly 2 lb of fruit and 8 to 10 slices of bread works. Raspberries, blackcurrants, blackberries and strawberries all work; frozen fruit is fine and gives more juice.
- Stewing and sweeteningFive to eight minutes over gentle heat is enough for soft berries; blackcurrants and gooseberries want a little longer. Sugar goes in after the fruit has broken down, roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup, tasted rather than measured. The currants or lemon juice are structural as much as flavouring, since acid tartness keeps a very sweet pudding from tasting flat.
- Chilling"Serve very cold" means several hours in the refrigerator, overnight if possible. Press a plate and a weight on top so the bread compacts; a short chill leaves it sloppy.
- CreamThe recipe says only "cream", which in this context most likely means plain unwhipped pouring cream. Whipped cream sits on top rather than running into the fruit.
- YieldSix servings from the quantities above.
Berry bread belongs to the large English family of puddings built from stale bread and stewed fruit, the best known of which is summer pudding — a dish that appears in nineteenth-century cookery under names like hydropathic pudding, reportedly because it was served at health spas where rich pastry was discouraged. The logic is thrift: bread too dry to eat plain is redeemed by fruit juice, and no oven, flour or eggs are required, which is why it sits comfortably in a low-cost collection. Layering in a deep dish rather than lining a mould, as here, is the everyday version — no turning out, no anxiety about whether the shape will hold. The instruction to add currants or lemon juice reflects a period habit of correcting soft, sweet summer fruit with something sharp.