IMBB ~ Stale Bread

Whew, i just made it under the wire. I chanced to read on Cooking With Amy that IMBB was this weekend and I just had enough time to get a dish in to participate.
Hosted by Obsession with Food, the theme is stale bread.
Say stale bread and I immediately think bread pudding. When I was a very small child and living a below the poverty line existence, my parents would get free day old bread from the bakery on trips into town. When they got home, a pot of goats milk would go on the stove with some honey. Cubed up dry bread was stirred into it and it was one of my favourite meals. Flash forward 20 years and I realise that was not true bread pudding. True bread pudding is dense and eggy and loaded with rich spices and dried fruit. And that is what I set out to make tonight.

The result was so rich, it needed a sauce of some sort. But so warm and soft and comforting.

Linda's Bread Pudding

3 large eggs
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
3 cups milk
1/2 vanilla bean
grating of nutmeg
1/3 cup currants
1/3 cup brandy
3 1/2 cups cubed bread (I used a lovely stale malted multigrain)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat milk with vanilla bean until just warmed. Soak currants in brandy. Separate eggs and cream egg yolks, golden syrup and sugar together. Add brandy /currant mixture and mix well. Stir bread and warm milk together and let bread soak in liquid mixture until very soft. Meanwhile, whisk egg whites to stiff peaks (I got that idea from the Joy of Cooking). Gently stirr egg yolk mixture into moistened bread and then fold egg whites in.
Pour into a well-oiled baking pan (I used a round one). Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.


Notes: This was so rich, I wished I had added some orange zest to it.

imbb25