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Bread Pudding
2 cups stale but not dry bread 1 quart milk 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 eggs 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Soak the bread in the milk until it is very soft, then mash it fine. Heat together until nearly boiling. Beat the eggs until light and add to them the sugar, salt and vanilla. When well mixed, stir this into the bread and milk, pour the whole into an earthenware baking-dish, set in a pan of water, and bake three-fourths of an hour in a rather slow oven. For chocolate bread pudding, melt two squares of chocolate over hot water and add this to the soaked bread and milk. For bread pudding with raisins, add one-half cup raisins.
A plain baked custard held together with bread, from the era when the water bath was the standard defence against curdling. Everything hinges on the temperature of the custard, not the clock.
- Oven temperatureA "rather slow oven" of the period corresponds to roughly 300-325F. Higher and the egg protein tightens and weeps liquid, which is what the water bath is meant to prevent in the first place.
- The water bathSet the dish in a roasting pan and pour in hot water to reach halfway up the sides. The recipe calls for earthenware; a ceramic or glass baking dish of about 2-quart capacity does the same job. Metal conducts too fast.
- Doneness over timingThree-quarters of an hour is a guide. The pudding is done when a knife inserted an inch from the edge comes out clean and the centre still trembles slightly; it sets further as it cools. Baked until firm all through, it will be dry.
- Squares of chocolateA square meant one ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate, so two squares is 2 oz. It is bitter on its own, and the half cup of sugar called for in the plain version is not increased for the chocolate variant.
- The breadTwo cups of torn or cubed day-old bread, firm white or an enriched loaf. Bread that is fully dried out will not mash smooth, and modern soft sandwich bread turns to paste almost immediately, so soak it briefly and watch it.
- Heating the milkBring the bread and milk to just below a simmer, then let it cool a minute or two before the eggs go in. Stirring beaten eggs into scalding milk without tempering will scramble them in streaks.
- QuantitiesA quart is 4 cups. The ratio is generous with milk, giving a loose, spoonable pudding rather than a sliceable one.
- YieldSix servings. Good warm with cream, and it keeps three days covered in the refrigerator.