I have a tendency to go a bit ape in Eastern European deli supermarkets as their produce is just so nice: Lithuanian sourdough bread and rolls, some with caraway seed, some just with rye, Lithuanian cheese, 1-kg-tubs of Polish twarog and "salmon bacon", a smoked pork delicacy, their smoked sausages, their herrings in oil. Then there's their dairy: all manner of Baltic sour creams of varying fat content. And these shops are the only ones to sell fresh baker's yeast. How brilliant is that?
My Lithuanian sourdough bread had gone dry but it was still good enough to eat, just a bit too chewy for sandwiches. So today I turned it into one of my favourite frugal desserts: bread and butter pudding. The way I made it, it turned out to actually have very little butter. What I did instead was:
* break the dry bread into smaller chunks
* put it in a bowl
* soak it in warm milk for half an hour
* wash and prepare the strawberries, add a teaspoon of sugar and put to one side in a bowl
* fry some chopped mixed nuts or almonds or hazelnuts in butter and sugar until brown
* mix 4 eggs, 2 or 3 huge tablespoons of thick sour cream, 1 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean essence and the rest of the milk that didn't soak in
* arrange the soggy bread pieces on a flat buttered baking tray
* pour the egg mixture over it all
* sprinkle with raisins
* season with a little ground mace
* put in the oven at gas mark 6ish for about an hour or until the mixture has swollen up around the bread and has firmed up and browned nicely.
* take out of the oven and sprinkle caramelised nuts over it
* cut out a piece and arrange fresh strawberries around
* make a thin vanilla sauce/custard out of a pint of milk but only half a bag of own-brand vanilla Angel Delight and pour over the dessert.
* Enjoy! (We did -- ooh, it was good...)
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