Traditional English Recipes
Afternoon Tea Treats

Традиционные английские рецепты блюд

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1) Bread Pudding
A Tasty Way with Leftover Bread

Ingredients

The ingredients for both are the same: Bread, suet or butter, dried fruit, sugar, egg, spices and a little milk to bind. Measurements are not exact, but relational - a bit like mixing drinks - and the formula is 4:2:1:1.

Try this one, which makes enough for four:

• 250g bread
• 125g dried fruit (currants, raisins, sultanas, mixed peel)
• 65g sugar or golden syrup
• 65g suet or butter
• 1 egg and a little milk
• cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice etc as liked

Preparation

Tear the bread into pieces and soak in water until soft.

Squeeze dry and combine with fruit, suet / butter, sugar and the ground spices.

Add the egg and mix.

Stir in a little milk to form a soft-ish mixture that drops from the spoon.

Pour into a greased baking dish - bakers seem to use a square tin, 1.5 inches high - and bake for about an hour in a low-medium oven (Gas 4 / 160°C-180°C).

When done, a skewer pushed into the centre should come out clean and the top should be nicely browned.

Cool briefly in the tin, then turn out and sprinkle liberally with caster sugar. This one is usually eaten cold.

Alternatively: pour the mixture into a greased pudding basin, cover the top with greaseproof paper, and boil or steam for about 2hrs. Unmould the pudding and serve hot with fresh custard or runny cream.

2) Bread and Butter Pudding

Ingredients

This is English pudding making at its most traditional.

It requires no kitchen chemistry, no scrupulous weighing and measuring and the quantity of bread and butter pudding you produce is only limited by the size of your baking dish!

That said, for four normal portions you'll need:

• 8 slices of white bread
• 2 large handfuls of dried fruit (currants, sultanas, raisins, mixed peel, berries - or all of the above)
• 2-3 tablespoons of caster sugar (a little more if you like your puddings very sweet)
• 3 eggs
• 300-350 ml milk or half milk, half double cream
• a little butter for the bread and for greasing the baking dish

Assembling and Baking

To feed four, first grease a large flat baking dish, about 1 - 1 1/2 inches deep.

Then cut the bread into 8 medium to thick slices and spread with butter.

Cut the slices into triangles, leaving the crusts on.

Arrange half the bread in the greased baking dish, then sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar and half the dried fruit on top.

Cover with the second layer of bread and repeat with the sugar and fruit.

Next beat three whole eggs with about 300-350ml of milk or half milk, half cream.

Pour the mixture over the bread and leave to soak for 10-20 minutes. (If you can't spare the time to soak the bread, it's not a disaster. The finished dish is still nice to eat, just not as silky.)

Bake in a preheated oven at Gas 4 (180°C / 350°F) for 20-30 minutes, until puffed up and golden.

Sprinkle with a little cinnamon or nutmeg and the last of the sugar.

For an extra crispy top, place briefly under a hot grill or broiler to melt the sugar. Or serve as it is with custard, pouring cream or vanilla ice cream.