I promise this is not a parody.
I had written a long-winded and piece about brown food, irrelevant garnishes, people who content-churn, posting for the likes and what it means for the definition of “real food”, but, it was too reminiscent of old man yells at cloud so it’s been archived into a “things to complain about later” file. Emerging from my literacy stupor I think I was trying to celebrate brown food and announce that not everything needs to be brightly coloured or highly stylised to be wonderful. Join me as I bask in the stupid serenity of my brown dining table and brown dessert. It’s Autumn, after all.
The moistness (hah) may vary depending on the size of your baking tray or loaf of bread (I used a rather large one on both counts) – you may have a little custard mix left over, or if you wanna get real juicy serve it with a little cream or ice cream on the side. Enjoy the brown food and share it with your pals. For a smaller version with stale bread and fruit, here’s a recipe for bread and butter sourdough pudding with sugarplums.
Bread and Nutella Pudding
1 loaf brown bread
400g Nutella (or more for the lavish)
600ml milk
600ml cream
260g sugar
8 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
Good grating of fresh nutmeg
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Slice most of your bread into generous slices, then depending on the size of the loaf, halve them. You can arrange them in your baking dish of choice to check you have enough.
2. Slather that bread with as much Nutella as you please. Make it thick. Arrange the bread into the dish, trying to sandwich the bread so that most of the Nutella has been covered on the surface (otherwise the Nutella will burn).
3. For the custard mixture whisk together milk, cream, eggs, sugar and cinnamon. Grate the nutmeg straight in the bowl. Pour over the bread – if it’s stale allow to stand for an hour, if it’s supple and fresh it’s good to go after 15 minutes or so. Tear the remainder of your bread into small pieces and fit them into the crevices of the dish, ensuring they are well coated in custard. Add a few extra decadent dollops of Nutella if you like.
4. Once bread is drenched and ready, give the bread one last push into the dish and bake in the oven for around 45-50 minutes. When ready (a skewer inserted comes out relatively clean, or push it down with a spatula – if no juice emerges all is well) sprinkle with icing or snow sugar and serve immediately.
