Recipe: Healthy Bread and Butter Pudding

I recently watched “The Hundred Foot Journey”, a movie about an Indian family who set up an Indian restaurant directly across the road from a French Michelin star restaurant in a small French village. It’s a good movie – funny, light hearted and feel-good and Helen Mirren is in it, I love her! 

One of the quotes from the movie is “food is memories”. I couldn’t agree more with this!! I learned to cook from my two grandmothers and my mother, though I’m still nowhere near as good as them! One of my grandmothers died three years ago and there is one dish especially that always reminds me of her. My grandmother had rheumatoid arthritis; it’s a type of arthritis that seriously affects your hands (as well as the rest of your body of course). Despite all this, she was tough and a true lady! When I was young, she taught me how to make bread and butter pudding. It was the first time I tried it and I loved it! Most people can take or leave this dessert but it’s one of my favourite comfort foods!  When I was in school and in college studying for exams, she would prepare the bread and butter pudding and drop it to our house so that I could put it in the oven and have it fresh! She always put cinnamon and nutmeg on top so the smell in the kitchen would literally make your mouth water. It always meant so much that she would think to do this for me.  

At the moment, I’m writing my PhD thesis while also working as a research assistant, so I am really feeling the “exam-time” pressure and getting cravings for comfort food. I want my body and brain working at their best so I can get all this work done, so I decided to substitute the ingredients from my grandmother’s recipe with healthy alternatives. Give it a try; it's really good and full of memories! <3

Ingredients

Instead of 12 slices of brioche bread use 12 slices of wholemeal or gluten-free bread – I used the Brennan’s “Be Good” wholemeal bread as it only has 60 calories per slice

Instead of 450 ml of milk use 450 ml of Almond Milk

Instead of 100g of butter use 100 g Peanut/Almond Butter

Instead of 150 ml of cream use 150 ml Coconut Cream

4 eggs

Instead of 75 g of sugar use 3 tbsp of Sweet Freedom

1 tsp vanilla essence

Nutmeg

A few handfuls of Raisins

Makes 8 servings

1 original serving contains approximately 400 calories, 26 g fat (14.5 g saturated), 30 g carbs, 28 g sugar, 1.1 g fibre, 8 g protein

1 healthier serving contains approximately 300 calories, 16.5 g fat (8 g saturated), 30 g carbs, 11 g sugar, 4.1 g fibre, 12 g protein

Method

Cut the crusts off the bread and then cut the remainder into triangles using a serrated knife. Butter one side of each triangle with the almond/peanut butter. Grease the oven dish by spraying it with some frylite. Arrange half of the buttered bread in the oven dish with the buttered side facing down. Sprinkle some nutmeg and raisins over this layer. Do the same with the rest of the bread to create the top layer and then sprinkle some nutmeg and raisins over the top.

To make the custard, heat the almond milk and cream over a medium heat without allowing it to boil. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, vanilla and sweet freedom until the mixture is light and fluffy. Then whisk together with the warm milk and cream mixture. Pour the custard over the bread and then use a fork to make sure all the bread is covered with custard. Cover with cling film and leave to allow the bread to absorb the liquid at room temperature for one hour.

Put the pudding in the oven (preheated to 180°C) for 45-50 minutes. A knife inserted into the centre should come out clean when the pudding is cooked. You should be able to pick up a cut piece of bread and butter pudding in your hand, it should not be runny but it should be moist.

This is actually lovely by itself or you can serve it with some fresh fruit and a squeeze of Sweet Freedom. The picture I have shown here is actually made in a smaller serving dish and serves two.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, I'd love to hear if you try it!

Niamh xxx