#stale bread

This Almond Bread Pudding, hearty and delicately sweet, flavoured with almond and rum, makes excellent use of stale bread and an excellent dessert and afternoon treat! Happy Thursday!

Ingredients (serves 4 to 6):

¼ cup sultanas

¼ cup good quality white rum (like Guadeloupe’s Damoiseau)

1 litre/4 cups Almond Milk

1 plump vanilla bean

350 grams/12.35 ounces stale Sourdough Bread and/or Baguette

1/2 cup caster sugar

3 large eggs

½ tablespoon unsalted butter

Spoon sultanas into a small bowl. Cover with white rum, and allow to soak, several hours (at least a couple.)

Pour milk in a medium saucepan.

Halve vanilla bean and scrape its seeds off. Add vanilla seeds and empty pod to the Almond Milk, and heat over a low flame.

Tear Bread and Baguette into large chunks into a large bowl. Sprinkle generously with caster sugar. 

Once the milk is just simmering, pour over the Bread and Baguette chunks, discarding empty pod. Give a good stir with a wooden spoon, to combine. Cover with a tea towel and allow to rest, 15 to 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180°C/355°F. Generously butter a pie plate.

Once the Bread and Baguette have soaked up most of the milk, and the mixture has cooled, break in the eggs, and mix well. Stir in reserved sultanas and their rum.

Gently spoon mixture into prepared pie plate, levelling with the back of the wooden spoon. Scatter small chunks of butter liberally on top. Place in the middle of the warm oven, and bake, at 180°C/355°F, 1 hour and a quarter to 1 hour and a half, until nicely golden brown on top.

Remove from the oven and let cool slightly.

Hunger is man’s enemy;

A caress on the mind.

To the basement, it came

With it a glutenous rind.

With Jon, it now rests.

To finish it was a task.

Until a fateful sighting

And so Bee must ask:

Why is there bread?

And I heed they give no pets.

Again, why? And I tell a want

To see how crispy it gets.

This may seem normal,

And yet there is more for the mind:

For what is in the bathroom?

Day 1: eat fresh with butter, cold sandwiches

Day 2: toast, cold sandwiches

Day 3: grilled sandwiches (adding a lid over the pan will help to steam rehydrate the bread)

Day 4: French toast, make croutons

15 Ways to Use Up Stale Bread

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