My English husband’s two favorite desserts are quintessentially British: apple crumble (with custard, if he can get it — that is, if I’m willing to make it) and bread pudding. When we were first married, he often spoke of bread-and-butter pudding. I thought it was just one of his weird little Englishisms and he was actually talking about regular ol’ bread pudding, but it turns out that I’ve been deeply mistaken. Simon will no doubt be delighted to learn that I’ve been wrong about something for 30 years, and he’s been right.
I was researching winter desserts recently and I came across a recipe for bread-and-butter pudding. I almost skipped it because I figured it was just another recipe for bread pudding, but then the picture caught my eye. It looked different, more like individually toasted slices of bread.
Bread pudding is typically chunks of white bread baked in a sweet custard — delicious, of course. But bread-and-butter pudding is sliced white bread, spread with butter and cut into triangles, then layered with sultanas (golden raisins) or currants, doused with warm custard, sprinkled with sugar and baked until golden brown on top.
That settled it. I had to make this dessert. But I started by questioning my husband more closely about the bread-and-butter pudding he grew up eating, which he said his grandmother made for family gatherings. He has good memories of it because it was “sweet and tasty and warm,” he said, something simple and cheering during the long, cold winter months. (Sound like any place you know?)