An old classic with a twist - Bread and Butter pudding - 6 variations - great desert ideas.

• • 25g of butter (1oz)
  • 8 medium slices of bread cut diagonally.
  • 50g golden raisins/sultanas (2oz)
  • 2 tsp cinnamon powder
  • 350 ml whole milk (12fl oz)
  • 50ml double cream (2fl oz)
  • 2 large eggs (Free range of course)
  • 25g granulated sugar (1oz)
  • Grated nutmeg

Bread and butter pudding was a great childhood favourite of mine and as an adult I found out how easy it was to make. I then experimented with various ideas and came to the conclusion that each was delicious.

What I knew as a child, what I received for my school lunch pudding on a regular basis was a normal bread and butter pudding with currents in. It was gorgeous and I did look forward to this time of the week.

As I experimented in the kitchen however, I found that I could make very tasty alternatives to this basic recipe. These I will share with you on this hub.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. That's Gas mark 4 or 355 F
2. Next grease the oven proof dish with butter. This should be big enough so that your bread fills half of the dish.
3. Each triangle of bread should be buttered too.
4. Half of these triangles are then placed overlapping, butter side up in the oven dish. Make it look pretty!
5. Sprinkle half of the golden raisins/sultanas evenly over this layer of bread with a little of the nutmeg and cinnamon to finish this layer off.
6. Repeat making the first layer with another layer onto in exactly the same way. I always remember seeing the raisins shining back at me from on top of the pudding.

That is your bread finished with for the moment, next:

1. Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan. Do not boil as it will burn to the bottom of the pan.
2. While this is simmering you should beat the eggs and 3/4 of the sugar until it is light and airy. Another clue would be the pale colour of the mixture.
3. The warm milk/cream mixture should then be added a little at a time. Beat until you see no more milk. Then continue adding a little more of the milk/cream until you have no more left.
4. This mixture can then be poured evenly over the bread until all of it is added.
5. Push the bread down a little into the mixture so that all the bread soaks it up.
6. Leave this mixture on the side for at least half an hour to allow the bread to be saturated with the mixture. (If not then the top of the pudding can become hard and burnt.)
7. Last of all, place in the oven for 40-45 minutes or until the surface is a golden brown colour. (The pudding should have risen.)
8. Serve hot or cold, either way it is delicious.

For this recipe you will need:

• • 25g of butter (1oz)
  • 8 buns or current buns.
  • 50g golden raisins/sultanas (2oz)
  • 2 tsp cinnamon powder
  • 350 ml whole milk (12fl oz)
  • 50ml double cream (2fl oz)
  • 2 large eggs (Free range of course)
  • 25g granulated sugar (1oz)
  • Grated nutmeg

Bums make this dish a little different but just as delicious.

How do you change it though?

There isn't much to change from the original instructions above to be fair, it is just a slight swist on an old classic.

• First you cut the buns in half and butter both sides.
• Place the bottom half side by side on the bottom of the oven dish.
• Sprinkle on the raisins etc on top of this layer.
• Then using the tops of the buns make a second layer.

Hot cross buns already have sultanas in them so why not use these instead. Of course if you want to add extra between the layers then you can but hot cross buns do make an excellent bread and butter pudding.

Individual puddings are a very nice thing to do for guests. They look great plus there is no messy cutting and serving issues.

This could be done using any serving suggestion I have made on this hub in individual oven dishes but my favourite has to be with the single hot cross bun which was cut in half and buttered before the mixture pouring on top of it. MMMMMMMMMMMMM!

Croissants are lovely so why not try this light and soft bread to make a bread and butter pudding.

The only difference here would be using this instead of the bread as described in the original intructions.

Everyone loves chocolate and chocolate drops melt so well in this dish. It is a welcome swist for most people and as a combination it melts in the mouth.

In the recipe don't add any raisins or saltanas just add lots of chocolate drops instead. That is the only difference here but it makes such an impact. This can be done for any of the different ideas I have given you on this hub.

Don't just limit yourself to milk chocolate drops either, try milk chocolate drops - now that is what I call an amazing pudding.

This is for all those chocolate lovers out there, the ones where just adding chocolate drops just doesn't cut it!

You will need 150g of dark chocolate broken into small chunks extra for this recipe (5oz)

So how do you do it?

• While you are warming the milk and cream solution you should melt chocolate.
• To this you should add the sugar and cinnamon.
• In a separate bowl break the eggs and whisk them.
• The chocolate mixture should then be added to the eggs slowely until you make one complete chocolate mixture.
• This is the mixture that you want to pour over the bread. It is thicker than the original so pouring a little into the bowl first for the bread to lie in is a good idea. Plus leaving it longer to soak into the bread too.
• Other than that, treat it like the original.

Of course you could add more chocolate into this by using chocolate drops, I would suggest milk chocolate here not to add different flavours but also different colours into your pudding.

In school we always had it hot with custard however, there are other suggestions you can try out:

• Hot with ice-cream (A hot cold mix is great for the palate)
• Hot with cream.
• Hot with greek yogurt.
• Cold by itself.
• Cold with ice-cream.
• Cold with cream.
• Cold with greek yogurt.

Then please watch this video off utube to show you the basic techniques.