Pretty much all of us have probably made bread and butter pudding to use up stale bread a good few times, but there's a shortcut that not everyone thinks of.
It's not quite the same, but it's a nice pudding in its own right and it took me seven minutes to make one earlier and cost next to nothing.
To make a small pudding for two people:
About half a cup of good dry breadcrumbs
1 egg
About the same amount of milk as you have egg
Sugar to taste
A small pinch of mixed spice
A small pinch of cinnamon
A small pinch of nutmeg
Some fruit, I used dried apple rings from my tree last year, quickly rehydrated with a dunk in boiling water.
I make this by eye so the measurements aren't critical, try it and make it how you like it.
Mix the egg, milk sugar and spices together. Chuck your breadcrumbs into a small Pyrex dish, pour the egg mix over them and mix, then mix in your fruit.
Chuck it into the oven for about 25 minutes at 150c for a fan oven, 160c for non fan, it's done when it puffs up a bit and its not wet in the middle.
If you want to make a savoury version you can leave out the fruit, cinnamon, mixed spice and sugar, and add grated cheese, salt and pepper and a spoonful of mustard, the nutmeg still works in the savoury one but don't use much, this is actually amazing, a bit like a cheese souffle.
I always have breadcrumbs knocking about, I hate throwing stuff away and real breadcrumbs are a really useful thing to have around.
