Bread and Butter Pudding from England

This is my family specialty. My Granny used to make it. Even my brothers can make it and that is saying a lot as they don't make anything else in the kitchen, except maybe a mess. This tasty pudding is easy to conjure up quickly if you have uninvited guests dropping by for dinner and you want to impress them with your culinary skills. This is what you have to scrounge in the kitchen:

2 cans condensed milk
10 slices bread
butter or marge for spreading
handful of raisins (optional)
2 cans boiling water (just pour the water into the empty condensed milk cans)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence or some orange essence if you want a citrussy flavour
If you thought the ingredients were easy then you'll be even more impressed with the method. It doesn't get much easier than this.
• lightly butter both sides of the slices of bread
• cut off the crusts and dice the slices into small

squares
• grease a baking dish and put the oven onto about 180 degrees Celsius
• throw the bread squares into the greased dish so it covers the dish quite evenly
• mix together in another bowl the condensed milk, boiling water, eggs and essence
• pour the liquid mixture over the bread squares
• you can sprinkle a little cinnamon on if you want
• put into the oven for about 45 minutes or until golden brown
• serve just like that or with cream or ice cream or custard
Cindy Vine is a South African living in Ukraine and is the author of Hush Baby, Defective and C U @ 8. All her books are available on Amazon in print and on Kindle.