A Food 'Memory' - Bread Pudding

I have been planning for the past couple of days to make a bread pudding and of course have been duly saving the old pieces of bread, instead of given them to the animals in preparation for this dish. It is something I remember having in my childhood, but not having eaten it since.

It is not a difficult dish to make either - if I remember correctly, it was basically, bread, eggs, milk and spices. Perhaps if someone was industrious there might be a sauce over the top. But often it was served and eaten, just as it was. 

So, today I got the large dish ready and had been mulling over what I might do to make this pudding tasty. I decided on  a few things and as is my usual style - I just dove in to it. The dish was buttered, the bread was placed on the bottom and I prepared an egg mixture with duck eggs, milk,  and all spices. 

Bread pudding seeded spelt bread pieces

The egg mixture was poured evenly over the top of the bread and allowed to sit for about an hour. I had a jar of unsweetened cherries in juice so, in place of additional raisins (there were some in the bread) I poured this jar of cherries over the top as well. 

Then I put this in the oven for about half an hour. In the meantime I made some hazelnut butter (always a lovely treat!) and some custard. I ended up mixing these two together to see what kind of taste I would get - it was tasty but the custard did not set enough.

Once the bread pudding was out of the oven and served up into dishes, I spooned out some of the hot custard mixture over it and voila - there was now some kind of dessert. Everyone loved it - except for me. I ate it while trying to analyze just why I was not enjoying it.

Then I realised, I don't remember if I like bread pudding. I don't even remember eating it - I just remember that it was there. But, perhaps I didn't like it then and I wasn't impressed today. I thought it was bland, which surprised me because there were so many flavours in there.

I think this was a classic food memory of an association between an unpleasant time and food - or unpleasant food and time....whatever! 

It's back to the drawing board for me with that one....

April

Bread pudding with hazelnut custard sauce