I often don’t get through a whole loaf of bread before it starts going dry. I hate to waste things so I have been putting dry-ish bread in the freezer for months, with the aim of eventually getting round to making bread and butter pudding.

Now that it is January I am in fridge and freezer emptying mode; I do this every year to try and use up Christmas leftovers and decrease spending for a while. A week into the new year we had a fantastic leftovers meal of vegetable pie, invented by my mum, followed by bread and butter pudding made by Steve. A cheap delicious meal, no food waste, and an evening off from cooking for me – winner! Steve based the bread and butter pudding on a good-old Delia Smith recipe from our old family recipe book. He adapted the recipe to use dates instead of currants and candied peel, and omitted most of the sugar other than some lovely crunchy demerara sugar on top.

Ingredients

• 8 slices of bread, buttered
• a handful of chopped dates
• 12 fl oz/ 350ml milk
• 3 eggs
• A couple of tablespoons of demerara sugar
• Grated rind of a small lemon
• Ground nutmeg

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180^oC.

Rub butter onto the base and sides of a deep oblong baking dish (Delia Smith says a 2 pint dish, I just choose one which looks about right).

Butter the bread and cut it into triangles. Place a layer butter side up into the dish and sprinkle on some chopped dates, add another layer of bread and repeat.

Measure out the milk (you can add cream if you are feeling decadent or have some to use up, as long as it adds up to the correct volume). Add the whisked eggs to the milk and then pour over the bread. Delia adds sugar, the lemon rind and nutmeg to the milk, but I prefer to add them at the end for a delicious crunchy topping.

Sprinkle the sugar, lemon zest and nutmeg onto the top and then bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes. It should end up lovely and gooey in the middle with a crispy top. The crispy sugar and lemon is delicious.