The greatest dishes are very simple. - Auguste Escoffier
While the exact place of origin of bread pudding is a bit sketchy, we do know that the name “pudding” most likely came from the French “boudin” - from the latin “botellus” - meaning little sausage. If you have ever been to France, you know that boudin is still a popular item in every butcher shop: black (blood) sausage or white, the same without the addition of blood.
Boudin noir or blood sausage is the oldest known sausage or charcuterie that exists. There are indications that blood sausage was being made in ancient Greece; the first reference to this food was in Homer’s Odyssey in the 7th century BC, the first written recipe appeared in the 4th century Roman cookbook De re coquinaria (On the Subject of Cooking) by Apicius.
Boudin is simply finely ground meat, usually pork, kneaded, sometimes with bread or eggs to bind, and moistened with blood, making a kind of paste, then seasoned with salt and pepper and spices, sometimes onions or shallots for flavoring, and stuffed in a casing. Finally, the sausage is boiled, retaining its shape in cooking.
By the Middle Ages, these types of sausages, or boudins, were a way for peasant farmers to preserve their excess of meat during the killing season, when a large number of beasts were slaughtered at once, producing a huge quantity of meat. In England and the North of France, the meat was often preserved with sugar and alcohol, and either seasoned with spices or sweetened with dried fruit, creating a meat cake or a meat loaf.
At the same time, a type of white porridge made of bread, fat, milk, starch, and either ham or chicken was traditionally made and eaten before the Christmas meal. Some time in the 18th century, someone had the idea to push this porridge into a pork casing, creating a white version of a boudin, a white sausage.
Eventually, as other ways of preserving meat were developed, the meat in these sausages or loaves would be replaced with more and more bread while the amount of sugar and dried fruits was increased, creating a new type of boudin, a sweet dessert…and somewhere along the way, the word transformed into pouding or pudding.
When famed chef Marie-Antoine Carême wrote Le Cuisinier parisien ou l'art de la cuisine française (The royal Parisian pastrycook and confectioner) in 1828, the number of ways of preparing and flavoring a pouding, both savory and sweet, was impressive. By this time, there were two popular ways of preparing this sweet treat: rendering the bread into a batter or paste by blending the crumbs with milk and eggs, adding sugar and pouring it into a mold, or layering slices of buttered bread (like the English) or brioche (which, according to Carême, made this a more refined, delicate, “French” pudding) with layers of dried fruits, usually a combination of varieties of raisins, pouring over vanilla-perfumed cream (mostly likely a crème anglaise) to soak through the layers, and baking in a bain-marie.
While many consider England to be the birthplace of the bread pudding, developed in the Middle Ages, which was to become the version we know today, it had also been a popular speciality throughout the north of France (called pain d’chien referring to the stale bread usually given to the dogs), Alsace (the mendiant or bettelmann), and Belgium (the bodding, a contraction of the Flemish word brood and the word pouding). It is possible that this sweet version of pudding was carried there by the English or those who had been to England when this part of the continent was part of Great Britain.
Today, bread pudding in France, or pudding au pain, is comfort food, a dessert made to use up stale bread, the way it is in most countries where this treat is eaten. As I mentioned in a former post where I shared the recipe for a chocolate bread pudding, unlike the Anglo-Saxon/American style of pudding in which chunks of bread soak up a custard while retaining their shape, the bread in French pudding is undetectable, the bread kneaded, beaten, or mixed with the eggs and milk to render a paste or batter. French bread pudding is a dense, moist molded loaf or cake. You will often find wedges of cake for sale in French boulangeries labeled “pudding”, and you’ll understand that this is the baker’s way of using up unsold bread, cake, or cookies, finely ground and replacing flour used in traditional cakes, creating a dense, moist, flavorful treat.
My version of this old-fashioned, highly addictive loaf is a perfect balance between delicately sweetened pudding and sweet raisins, mildly bitter caramel, and a hint of orange and cinnamon. I dare you to eat only one slice.
Caramelized pudding au pain or French bread pudding
3.5 ounces (100 grams) raisins, dark or blond
7 ounces (200 grams) stale bread, cubed
2 cups (500 ml) milk, whole or low fat
¾ cup (150 grams) sugar
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
Finely grated zest of one orange, preferably untreated, optional but good
Dash of ground cinnamon, ¼ to ½ teaspoon
½ teaspoon vanilla
10 sugar cubes (2 ounces, 60 grams)
2 tablespoons water
Couple drops lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Have ready a regular loaf pan.
Rinse the raisins and place in a small bowl; cover with hot water and allow to soak for 15 minutes to plump. Drain and set aside.
While the raisins are plumping, cube the stale bread (smaller is better, but about an inch square is fine) and place in a large mixing heatproof or Pyrex mixing bowl. Bring the milk just to the boil in a small saucepan and immediately pour the hot milk over the bread cubes. Allow the bread to soak up all of the milk, tossing and pressing the cubes down into the hot milk regularly. This should take several minutes.
Once the bread has soaked up all of the hot milk and is softened, either run it through a food mill or purée it using an immersion mixer or processor until fairly smooth. Return to the mixing bowl and whisk or stir in the sugar, the lightly beaten eggs, the plumped and drained raisins, the finely grated orange zest, the ground cinnamon, and the vanilla. Stir to blend well.
Place the sugar cubes, the water, and a few drops of lemon juice into the loaf pan. Place the loaf pan over medium-low heat and carefully cook. The sugar will melt and the mixture will bubble; allow to cook gently, shifting the pan around and back and forth gently, until it turns into a deep golden/light brown caramel. This can take from 5 to 10 minutes but watch very carefully for as soon as the sugar begins to turn into a caramel (turning brown) it goes very quickly and can burn easily.
Remove the loaf pan from the heat and carefully tilt the pan back and forth so the caramel evenly coats the bottom of the pan and goes a little way up the sides. Immediately pour the pudding batter into the loaf pan on top of the caramel and smooth. Bake for one hour until puffed and golden.
Remove the loaf pan from the oven and allow to cool just until the pan can be handled (the pudding should no longer be hot but should still be warm). Run a sharp knife around the edges to loosen the pudding then place a serving platter upside down on top of the loaf pan. Quickly invert the platter and the pan and lift the loaf pan off of the pudding.
The Bread Pudding is delicious eaten warm or at room temperature, plain, with yogurt, whipped cream or ice cream. We love it plain with a cup of coffee.
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Loved reading this. I am from French Louisiana (Cajun) and I grew up eating boudin which is mixed with rice and meat from a boucherie made by my grandparents. This was done on my Fathers side. On my Mothers side we had wonderful bread puddings from stale bread and raisins, etc that my grandmother made. Nice to read the origins of where our foods came from.
We have such a variety of foods from our culture.
I live in VA now but I keep up with tradition foods.
Thank you for the history lesson. Have a wonderful Hotel season.
Bread Pudding is the nectar of the gods. I learned about it when I was teaching on John’s Island, SC where the dark skinned children speak Gullah. Their lunches often included bread pudding and I unashamedly
Asked for leftovers. I was in my 30s then, but I will never forget those people or their pudding.