The Thrifty Cookbook: 476 Ways to Eat Well With Leftovers (68 page)

Put a serving plate over the top of the bowl and, holding on firmly, invert it all. If the juices have saturated all the bread, the pudding should plop out easily.

Pour the reserved juice over the pudding, being sure to cover any white patches of bread, and serve with cream, vanilla ice cream or mascarpone.

These are old-fashioned puddings that really deserve rediscovery. They are both a brilliant way of using up stale bread in the form of crumbs and both are served hot – delicious with vanilla ice cream or home-made Custard (see
page 33
).

Charlottes are in some ways a moulded variation on Brown Betty (see
page 228
) and are another languishing ‘nursery’ pudding in which fruit is layered with breadcrumbs. You can use any fruit you like in place of the apples, stewing it first with a little sugar to taste. Rhubarb is fantastic with a little ginger and brown sugar, or mix it with raspberries. My brother loved pineapple Charlotte when we were small and it is seriously good with the tart addition of redcurrants. Ripe summer stone fruit and sweetened autumn plums are both equally inviting.

Serves 4

4–6 slices of bread, lightly buttered, crusts removed

450g apples (a mixture of Bramleys and Cox’s is good), peeled, cored and diced

50g raisins or currants

1 tablespoon caster or raw cane sugar

30g butter, plus a little extra for frying

1 egg

120g breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Butter a 600ml pudding basin or soufflé dish and line it with the slices of lightly buttered bread, reserving one for the top (if you prefer, you can make a lighter dish by pressing breadcrumbs on to the sides of the basin but this is far more fiddly).

Put the apples, dried fruit, sugar and butter in a pan with a sprinkling of water and heat gently until the apples form a pulp. Leave to cool, then whisk the egg into the mix.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Mix the breadcrumbs with the cinnamon. Heat a little butter in a frying pan, add the breadcrumb mixture and cook until crisp and lightly coloured. You will need to stir pretty constantly and watch to check the bread does not burn.

Pour a third of the apple pulp into the basin, top with half the toasted breadcrumbs and repeat in layers, finishing with a layer of apple. Top with a final slice of buttered bread, cutting it to fit and making sure the filling is well covered. Cover with foil and bake for half an hour. Remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes, until the crust is browning. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert the pudding on to a serving plate. Serve warm with cream, ice cream, crème fraîche or Custard (see
page 33
).

This pudding used to be heavy with suet and steamed for hours – until it evolved into something significantly lighter. Almost any fruit can be used in place of the apples, including pineapple, mango or even rhubarb when it’s in season. You could also replace some of the apple with dried fruit, such as currants or raisins.

Serves 4

60g stale breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon melted butter, plus a little butter for greasing the dish

130g soft brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg or mixed spice

a pinch of salt

juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

400g apples (preferably cooking apples), peeled, cored and diced

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Butter a 1-litre baking dish. Mix the breadcrumbs with the melted butter. In a separate bowl, mix the sugar with the spices, salt, lemon zest and vanilla.

Spread about a third of the buttery crumbs over the bottom of your dish. Cover with a layer of half the apples, then half the spicy sugar mixture. Sprinkle half the lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water on top. Then start the process again with another third of the crumbs, the remaining apples and then the last of the sugar. Sprinkle lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water over it again and finish with the remaining crumbs on the top. Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and increase the heat to 200°C/Gas Mark 6. Bake for 10 minutes to get a crispy top. Serve with cream, Custard (see
page 33
) or vanilla ice cream.