Matt Preston's ultimate winter pudding

Matt Preston shares the history of this winter's trending dessert, plus his perfect version of this classic pudding... with a surprising hack!

Matt Preston's ultimate winter pudding

Bread and butter pudding. It’s long been one of winter’s most popular comforting desserts, but this year it’s enjoying a comeback. One of our top search terms on site at the moment is “bread pudding”, with searches up a whopping 2065%  year on year.

It’s easy to understand why. Not only is it comforting and delicious, but it’s also an extremely affordable winter dessert in current economic times.

Classic bread and butter pudding

The history of bread and butter pudding, by Matt Preston

Matt says: “Bread and butter pudding is an illustrious winter dessert whose roots lie deep in history. The name ‘pudding’ dates back to ancient Rome and comes from the Latin word for sausage. Early puddings were usually savoury, made with meat bulked up with ground almonds, rice or bread. From these Medieval ‘blancmangers’ came bread puddings in which stale bread or breadcrumbs were central to the dish rather than used as thickening agents.

“When custards were employed, which gave a lighter result, we started to see something closer to a true bread and butter pudding. While custards were most undoubtedly a medieval European invention, the earliest record of something that sounds like a bread and butter pudding appeared in Egypt at the end of the 13th century.

“The first full recipe for a bread and butter pudding, as we would recognise it today, didn’t appear until John Nott’s Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary was published in 1723. As with all great ideas, it took root quickly, and by the mid 19th century bread and butter pudding was a common recipe in most cookbooks of the day on both sides of the Atlantic – although in North America it was also known as a ‘sippet pudding’.

“Over recent years, there have been attempts to stray from this true bread and butter pudding path. The bread has been spread with jam or marmalade, the custard kissed with lemon zest, orange zest, cinnamon or rose water rather than nutmeg, and apples or even fresh grapes have been used instead of raisins.

Related video: Is this Australia’s best apple crumble recipe?

“Then there’s been the craze for drizzling over sauces – perhaps a whisky sauce to work with that Dundee marmalade or a drizzle of salty caramel.

“One of the other big advances in bread and butter pudding has been in the bread used. In the past decade I’ve seen everything from croissants, challah and brioche to ‘pain au chocolat’, Italian panettone and even Krispy Kreme doughnuts used instead of stale bread.”

Matt Preston’s best-ever bread and butter pudding

The secret to Matt’s bread and butter pudding lies in his additions. He says: “We’ve used stale croissants, because once you’re using condensed milk you might as well go the whole hog!” He admits that it’s “slightly out-there”
We hope this helps you enjoy our slightly out-there version
of the classic bread and butter pudding even more.”

By adding blueberries and white chocolate, Matt has given his pudding a bit of extra wow factor. After all, as he says: “Blueberries love white chocolate the way real estate agents love commission.” He also added a “saucy drizzle of condensed milk to finish”. Who doesn’t love a bit of condensed milk?

Originally published as Matt Preston's ultimate winter pudding