Recipes From The Kitchen At Bag End

dreamflower02 has just posted a lovely traditional recipe for a bread and butter pudding - or at least in Britain it would be called a bread and butter pudding, rather than a bread pudding, because the name 'bread pudding' is given to something else.

And it struck me that the traditional British Bread Pudding was also a very hobbitty recipe. The white pot type would be eaten as dessert after a meal, whereas this type is usually eaten with a cup of tea as if it were cake - and would be the ideal thing for a hobbit to take as a snack to eat whilst walking, or working in the fields; it lends itself to being wrapped in a red and white spotted handkerchief somehow!

As many family recipes designed to use up leftovers, measures are not all that well defined, but this is pretty close to how my mum or granny made it;

Take stale bread, including crusts, tear it into chunks, put in a bowl and pour boiling water over - just enough to moisten it, not drown it!

Leave to cool a little and then squeeze the excess water out, which should break up the bread fairly well. Now, at this point I would just go by eye and instinct, as I think would the average hobbit - but this only works if you've made this before! However if you had started with a whole, 2lb/800gm loaf these would be about the right amounts.

Add to the bread a good 500g dried fruit of your choice (in the UK you buy bags of mixed fruit that contain currants, raisins, sultanas and a small amount of candied peel, but dried cherries, or cranberries, or whatever would all be interesting and tasty).

Also add about 180 -200g ready to use suet, or melted butter, 150g or so of soft brown sugar, 2 heaped teaspoons mixed spice (very like American pumpkin pie spice mix), and 2 eggs - then if the mixture is a bit dry add milk until it is like a thick batter.

Pour into a well greased, or lined baking tin, scatter some sugar on the top, and bake in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 180C / 160Fan / 350F / Gas4 for an hour to an hour and a half, until it is firm and browning on top. Allow to cool in the tin.

Once it is cool cut into good size chunks!

It should look rather like this -




It is good eaten warm with custard too - but not if you plan to do anything energetic in the next hour or two :)