Bread & Peanut butter pudding
A dessert. And also a breakfast. By Kate
I do not sleep much at the moment. Every now and then a night of 7 or 8 hours of obliviouness will come along just to keep me going. Mostly though, sleep does not come.
The other morning it was bread and peanut butter pudding. That came completely out of nowhere – I hadn’t even been thinking about food generally but suddenly there it was; fully formed. I examined it at length and the more I did, the more I liked the idea.
Great wholemeal bread (and I know just the one), peanut butter instead of butter, honey on the peanut butter for sweetness (and who doesn’t love PB and honey?) and then a custard made from almond milk and duck eggs. Another dish teetering on the brink of veganism and then hauled back at the last minute by the duck eggs, but they are just too damn good.
Then, a few days after that, I started thinking about breakfast. Someone I know told me about the pancakes that Macdonalds serve in the mornings - a dish of stodge and sweetness with butter; an undeniably attractive option on a cold winter morning. Surely I could come up with a super healthy equivalent? A breakfast that would warm you up from the inside and give energy for hours afterwards; even if there was running around or lots of physical activity to be done.
The two were to eventually become related.
On Saturday, I took 6 slices of my favourite bread home from the shop. We buy all our bread from Luca’s on Lordship Lane
I love the Rye
So, the slices came home and I duly chopped off the crusts and froze these, to be conscripted into soup thickening duties another time. Next, I spread the slices with Peanut butter and honey and then cut these into triangles and rectangles.
Then I heated up 350ml Almond milk and at the same time melted about 80g of coconut oil. Double cream was a crucial ingredient I would be leaving out, so I wanted something that would give a different kind of fat from the peanut butter. The melted oil went into the warm milk and then both went into the beaten eggs and it was all gently stirred together.
I grated the zest of an orange and some fresh nutmeg into the milk mixture, poured this over the bread which had been layered in a pie dish and popped it in the oven. I noticed later that instructions I had scribbled down from the BBC website had advocated leaving it to stand for 30 minutes at that point but I forgot.
After 30 minutes in the oven, it was a feast for the eyes. Peaks of crispy looking toast and Peanut butter jutted from a browned custard just covering spongy islands of bread. It wasn’t easy waiting until it cooled to have a bowl but I managed somehow.
I will also next time use even more orange zest and nutmeg and definitely vanilla pod in the milk as it warms. All of these were obviously missing.
But on the plus side, the texture was incredible. You have to be of the persuasion that likes warm stodge but frankly, I don’t know many people who live in this climate who aren’t. The crispier, toasty bits contrasted perfectly with the soggy underneath bits and it tasted as nourishing as it did delicious.
The peanut butter worked perfectly too. I guess you have to be a devotee of this condiment anyway but if you are, you will love this. The baking of it seems to make it less cloying and sticky but you lose none of the rich, nutty flavour.
And then the dots fused. Breakfast! The sweeter version for dessert and an only slightly sweeter version of this very one for breakfast on a cold winter morning. It is essentially a coming together of a variety of much loved breakfast ingrediants – duck eggs, toast, bread, peanut butter and honey. And just like in all the greatest relationships, together they are glorious.
The perfect breakfast to fill someone up with before they have to go out into the cold, hard world and it freezes well too. I had to defrost a portion for this morning, (just to double check it froze successfully, you understand) and enjoyed it so much cold that I never got round to reheating even a small corner of it, just to double check on that process.
I will shortly return to the dessert version which I have high hopes of too, particularly with some dried apricot. I'll let you know.
I do not sleep much at the moment. Every now and then a night of 7 or 8 hours of obliviouness will come along just to keep me going. Mostly though, sleep does not come.
The thoughts that decide to make themselves known in the quiet morning hours are entirely unregulated. The spectrum is covered; from the genuinely angst-ridden questions to do with how to manage to live a productive, happy life to the utterly frivalous - is shiny silver nail polish ever appropriate in a business context? (I was thinking yes, but then it was 4.30am.)
