waste not want not.............

Last weekend I had another recipe in the Sydney Saturday Daily Telegraph

here it is below for anyone that missed out

Xx Siobhan Rogers

This has been my latest mum mantra in our house, The amount of waste my kids create is unbearable so I have had a crack down lately. Its not just the grocery money but the waste of our resources and the effort that goes into producing.

I always seem to have stale bread.

One of the best uses for my stale bread (other than bread crumbs) is little individual bread and butter puddings.

They are very slap bang together, the kids love making them and more importantly eating them.

You can fancy them up with custard or icecream or just eat them warm with a cup of tea.

Use any bread you like, seeded, wholemeal, sourdough, brioche, crossants – any bread will work.

For Easter I like to use Italian Panatone or hot cross buns.

For this batch I used

½ a stale white bread bagette and two Italian rock hard crunchy bread rolls cut into slices and butter for spreading onto the bread

Wet Mix

mix all of this together in a bowl and let it sit for 5 or more minutes

600ml poring cream

½ cup caster sugar

1 vanilla bean cut in half and seeds scraped

5 eggs lightly beaten

pour the wet mix into the bowl of stale bread.

Let it sit until all the liquid is soaked into the bread, add in the chocolate chips.

Line your individual tins and spoon in your bread mixture half way, then dollop a little jam and continue adding the bread mixture until the tins are full.

Leave the tins full of the wet bread mixture to sit for a little and let the batter settle.

At this stage you could refrigerate until you are ready to bake them - you could prepare to this stage a day ahead if you wanted.

Bake in a medium oven 180c fan forced for 30/40 minutes or until golden on top and set.

They are best eaten fresh ! and warm from the oven.

Recipe Ingredients

For this batch I used

½ a stale white bread bagette and two Italian rock hard crunchy bread rolls cut into slices

butter for spreading onto bread

Strawberry jam

Dark Chocolate chips

Wet Mix

mix all of this together in a bowl and let it sit for 5 or more minutes

600ml poring cream

½ cup caster sugar

1 vanilla bean cut in half and seeds scraped

5 eggs lightly beaten

spread a little butter onto the bread slices on one side and place the buttered bread into the wet mix

Let the bread and wet mix sit for at least an hour and mix it up every now and then to make sure all the bread is soaking up the cream and egg mixture.

Mix in the chocolate chips to the bread mix

Once the bread has soaked up all the liquid, line some patty cake cases with baking paper, I used two different shaped pans – you can use anything.

Using a spoon - spoon in the bread mix to your individual tins, filling half way. Add in a little spoonful of jam and continue to spoon in the bread mix until the tin is full. Let the mixture sit for 10/15 minutes to settle.

Set the oven to 180c fan forced oven and bake for 30- 40 minutes or until golden on top and the mixture looks set.

The individual puddings are lovely warm or cold and a lovely treat.

Instead of Choc chips and Jam you could use sultanas, add a little orange zest or use fresh fruit in season such as fresh Figs or Raspberries.