Queen of Puddings - Stale bread recipe

This is the Queen of stale bread recipes and an excellent alternative to the traditonal bread pudding. Transform your old bread into a delicious dessert with this easy recipe, reduce waste and save money with this budget-friendly frugal recipe.

Having lived in our Bed and Breakfast in Limousin, France for seven years now, I'm only too aware of the pride the French have in their cuisine but even they concede that the British are great when it comes to making puddings. I think that the old-fashioned puds are often the best.

These days it is becoming less and less acceptable to waste food and this is an excellent way to use up old bread helping you to become a 'greener' cook. The Queen of Puddings is one of the tops because it's hard, or near impossible, to imagine that such lowly and cheap ingredients as stale bread, milk, a couple of eggs, a sniff of lemon, a scrape of jam and a spoon of sugar can be transformed into something so attractive to look at and so sublimely gorgeous to eat. It really is a culinary fairy story; your old stale bread is going to be transformed into a beautiful queen before your very eyes! If you haven't already made this dish, you really must try it out!

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• 1 pint (570 ml) milk (you can use rice or soya milk)

• About 4oz Fresh or stale bread cubed or made into bread crumbs

• ½ oz (10g) butter or 1 tbs olive oil

• 1 oz or 50g golden caster sugar (I have reduced the sugar right down as I find the old recipes too sweet. If you have a sweet tooth, double the sugar)
  

• Grated rind from one lemon

• 3 table spoons of jam*

• 2 large eggs

* Raspberry, strawberry, apricot work well, but I used our own home made peach jam and it was excellent!

You will also need

• An oven proof dish about1.5 litres with sides about 10 cm high (I tried to make this pudding in a deep flan dish and it didn't work very well!). Grease the dish with butter or oil.
  

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4, 180° or 360°F

Bring the milk to the boil. Meanwhile, dice the bread into half-centimeter cubes, or make into breadcrumbs. I leave on the crusts. When the milk has boiled, remove from the heat and mix in the bread, half of the sugar, the grated lemon rind, and then leave to soak for about half an hour while you prepare the other ingredients.

Separate the eggs carefully. It is important not to get any egg yolk into the egg whites. Add the egg yolks, lightly whisked, to the bread and milk mixture, pour into the oven proof dish and bake for about 45 minutes until it is just set.

Meanwhile whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until it forms stiff peaks when lifted up with the whisk. You can use a hand whisk, but this is very hard work and and electric whisk is so much easier. Then whisk in about half of the sugar.

When the base is ready, take it out of the oven and spread the jam over the top of the bread mixture. Spoon the egg white mixture over the jam and bread base. Sprinkle with the last of the sugar and bake until the topping is a nice, golden brown.

This pudding is so light and moist that you don't need to serve it with anything else; I can't think of any topping that would iprove it! You could serve it, though, on a flat plate decorated with pretty, edible sugared flowers to get 'the wow factor'.

In the photo opposite, the pudding is served on famous Limoges china plates. The history of Limoges porcelain in this region of France is a long and fascinating one. The china itself is beautiful, fine, translucent but very strong.

Find out more about Limoges Porcelain.

The White Plates of Limoges

Where to buy Limoges Porcelain in Limousin

Limoges Porcelain Boxes

Berger Lamps

Limoges Porcelain Lamps

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