Hey everyone, welcome to my corner!
In this episode of historical baking I explore a simple bread pudding recipe from the National Cookbook by Hannah Mary Bouvier Peterson from 1856 that ended up being not so simple! Luckily I was able to do some research on the price and weight of bread in 1850, and figured out the sticky spots… so you don’t have to! You can find the full recipe and my modern conversion below. The nice thing about this recipe is that it is so basic that you can add all sorts of extras to jazz it up. This one is definitely going into my repertoire! If
The history part of this is really interesting to me, but if you are bored with the price of grain and bread, you can skip to the actually cooking part around the 12:35 mark. Some of the edits in this are rough and include misspellings (sorry, I was trying to do it quickly) and something was up with my mic for the voice-over… but it gets the job done. I’m constantly learning about making videos, and I hope you will let my (many) mistakes in this video slide.
Original Recipe:
French Bread Pudding
One-half of a four cent baker’s loaf;
one quart of milk;
Three eggs;
One gill of dried currants;
Sugar to the taste
Boil the milk, slice the bread, and pour the boiling milk over it. Stand it away to cool.
Beat the eggs, and add them and the sugar when the milk is cool. Wash, pick and flour the currants, and stir them into the mixture. Put it in a pudding dish, and bake it half an hour in a moderate oven. Serve it with or without sweet sauce.
Modern conversion (half batch):
1/2 pound (250 g) bread
2 cups (500ml) milk
1 extra large (75g) egg, whisked
1/4 cup (50g) sugar
1/2 cup (75g) dried currants
(you can also add chocolate chips, other dried fruits, nuts, spices, or anything else you like in your bread pudding)
Tear the bread into small chunks. I tore off the crust, but I recommend leaving it on for texture. Heat the milk until it foams, but doesn’t quite boil (stir regularly to prevent burning). Pour it over the bread and put a lid or plate on the bread to keep it all in the milk. Let the milk cool for a couple hours or overnight (I didn’t test the overnight option, but I’m pretty sure it will work). Preheat the oven to 350. Pour in the egg, sugar, and currants (or other additives) and mix thoroughly. Pour into a baking dish (I used a 9 inch round casserole dish) and bake for 35-40 minutes.
I’m not going to put all of my sources down here, but I will post the three main places with excellent information:
http://www.johnhearfield.com/History/Breadt.htm
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodbreads.html
https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/1850-1859
Original of the video here
Pancakes Recipes
Waffles Recipes
Pies Recipes
Cookies Recipes
Bread Recipes