Bread Pudding - A 30,000-Year-Old Recipe

Bread pudding probably dates back about 30,000 years to when our ancestors first started growing cereal grains. No doubt they would have pounded the grains into a paste with water, and baked the dough on hot stones beside the fire to make some form of flatbread.

At some point they would have been left with stale bread on their hands, and some bright spark would have had the idea of tearing it up, adding water, and baking it to form a cooked stodge. Someone would have said 'that's not bad, but what about adding nuts and berries or honey or something', and the rudiments of this lovely pudding would have been born.

Their wood-fire baking would have been a far cry from the swanky Rational combi ovens we're lucky enough to be using on our cheffing apprenticeship, but the principal is the same - not wasting food by finding recipes to use up leftovers.

So last week when the first-year students were let loose for their first bread-making lesson, and produced two crates of what can only be described as a varied selection of loaves, ranging in hue from umber to charcoal black, we were given the task of hacksawing off the crusts and making bread pudding for the college restaurant.

There are of course hundreds of variations of bread pudding around the world. A version is eaten in Mexico during Lent, and there is a very good one called Wet Nelly (not to be confused with the James Bond car) which is a favourite in Liverpool and involves baking the pudding in pastry.

The one we made is an industry standard, which can be tinkered with the addition of flavourings like rosewater and nutmeg, and different dried fruits and nuts. I recommend adding walnuts and chopped dried apricots along with the sultanas.

Another good one which will help use up your windfall apples, if you're lucky enough to have an apple tree in the garden, or even a garden, is to peel and core the apples, cut into quarters and cook into a mush with a little water, adding sugar to taste. Add the apple puree to the bread mixture, following the recipe below.

Cinnamon Bread Pudding

(Makes 10 portions)

1.25kg stale bread, crusts removed
300g white sugar
300g currants
1.5 tsps ground cinnamon
1.5 tsps mixed spice
180g butter
3 eggs
Water

Cut the crusts off the bread and tear it into strips. Put in a bowl and add about a third of its volume in water. Squeeze the bread between your fingers for a few minutes to make a mush.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small squares and add to the eggs. Beat together and add three-quarters of the sugar. Beat again and mix in the spices and currants, or what other fruits you're using.

Lift out the bread mush, squeezing out excess water with each handful, and add to the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. Grease a large baking tray and line with baking paper. Add the pudding mix and smooth the top.

Sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for one hour. Let it cool and cut into 10 portions. Serve hot or cold with custard, cream, ice cream or caramel sauce.

Restaurant Apologises For Foul-Mouthed Twitter Rant At Customer

A Dublin restaurant is the latest eatery to find itself at the centre of a social media row after calling a disgruntled customer an “arsehole” on Twitter.

Cinnamon, an upmarket cafe and wine bar in Ranelagh, issued a grovelling apology and said it had disciplined the staff member who sent out the insulting tweets.

The unnamed worker saw red during a particularly busy Sunday service when blogger Sean Mongey sent out a message on Twitter, saying he had been waiting in the “pretentious crèche” for 40 minutes and his food still hadn’t arrived.

Cinnamon replied with a snooty: “We don’t have a problem that needs to be solved we are Dublin’s busiest restaurant on Sunday...Expect delays.”

When the customer threatened to take his business elsewhere, the family-friendly restaurant replied: “Please do. You’ll be one less person in the Q.”

The staff member then added for good measure: "Here's something else for you to re tweet. You're an arsehole. Why don't you come in and introduce yourself to us."

Six hours later, the restaurant deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology on its Facebook page, offering in a self-effacing style while also appearing to enjoy the attention, that it would be serving coffees for one euro for the next week to diners who mentioned “Twittergate” while ordering.

“We wish to formally apologise to the customer, who we accept had a legitimate complaint,” the statement said. "We are a very busy restaurant and this past weekend had 50% more customers than a normal weekend and were overwhelmed by this.

“Staff morale is very important to us and has been severely affected by this incident. We employ over 50 staff and would not wish to jeopardise their livelihood."

Seems a bit of a storm in a coffee cup, compared with the foul-mouthed Twitter rants an unknown blogger was subjected to last week by Claude Bosi and his celebrity chef chums after complaining about his crab starter at the French cook’s London restaurant Hibiscus.

Bosi, Tom Kerridge, and Sat Baines dubbed James Isherwood a “cunt”, with Kerridge adding: “Smash him in, chef Bosi.”

None of them have apologised, as far as I know, so you have to applaud Cinnamon restaurant for doing so over a much milder mauling. But the way the blogger has relentlessly milked the story over the past few days it makes you wonder whether they might have had a point.