Cranberry Bread Pudding
A different kind of bread pudding, with cranberries!
Adventures in historic cooking
Very light cranberries mousse pie – would make an outstanding Thanksgiving dessert!
Another recipe from the Maritimes in Wartime, this dish is meant to stretch your small amount of oysters into a meal for a family, and it does so pretty darn well!
125 g egg noodles 3 tbsp butter 3 tbsp flour 1.5 cups milk 2 tbsp chopped parsley 1/4 tsp mace salt and cayenne pepper 4 hardboiled eggs, sliced 12 oysters (I used frozen) buttered breadcrumbs
Preheat oven to 400F and butter baking dish. Cook the egg noodles in salted water for 6-8 minutes and then drain. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add flour and cook for 1 minutes. Add the milk, stirring to remove lumps. Simmer while stirring, until thickened. Add parsley and seasonings and remove from head. Alternate layers of sauce with layers of noodles/oysters/eggs. (I just mixed them all together). Cover with breadcrumbs. Bake for 15 minutes.
This was pretty easy to put together – noodles, white sauce, boiled eggs and raw oysters (yes, they cook fully in the 15 mins this dish bakes).
I fully drained the oysters. I think I might try saving the oyster juice once they thawed, and adding that to the dish. Currently, it’s not very oyster-y.
I really like this dish! It was a nice casserole, and I liked the egg and oysters. Given that we are not currently living under wartime rationing, I’d probably double the oysters, leaving the rest of the recipe the same.
Also, do use the cayenne – it really goes surprisingly well with the oysters.
I don’t think this is done anymore, but back in the 80s gas stations would give out/sell for nominal prices cookware and other things with a fill up. My parents patronized the Ultramar in our town, and not only got a set of pyrex baking …
Another recipe originating in From the Hearth, this one is a bread pudding with a difference. Not your typical dense bread pudding, it’s light and airy due to the addition of beaten egg whites. This is another dish using candied peel, which you can make yourself.
4 cups bread, cubed 4 cups milk 1 cup sugar 6 eggs, separated and beaten salt 1-2 tsp orange flower water 2 tbsp candied peel, chopped fine
Bring the milk to a boil. Pour over bread and mix in sugar, salt, orange flower water and candied peel. Let sit for 20-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350F. Run through a sieve (I didn't do this). Add the beaten egg yolks. Then fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into a buttered dish (or two - expect to need two medium-large oven-safe bowls), and place in a bain-marie (water bath). Bake about 1 hour, or until tester comes out clean. Option: sprinkle top with sugar and brown under the broiler until golden.
This made a LOT. I had to use two baking dishes, and two bain-maries (neither of which was deep enough). I feel like my kitchen is pretty well stocked, and I was a little stumped as to how I’d arrange big baking dishes into other even bigger baking dishes. I will cut this in half next time.
I decided not to try and sieve the bread post-soaking – it was almost all broken up anyway (with the exception of a few bits of bottom crust), and I like my bread pudding with some texture.
The result was really light and airy and moist. You expect the moist part from bread pudding, but honestly I would not have predicted this texture from a dish with 4 cups of bread in it.
The recipe book suggested pureed fruit or cream sauce to go with it – I went for strawberry.
This was really, really excellent. Super light. Just the right amount of citrus/floral from the peel and orange flower water. Not too sweet. Overall, fantastic. I will make this again. Just … less of it.
A strawberry shortcake with a different type of base – absolutely the best!
This is a down-home Nova Scotian dessert which is WAY better than it sounds. Great way to use up blueberries that need using!
1 quart blueberries 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup sugar 1.5 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp sugar 1 tbsp butter 2/3 cup milk (approx). Whipped cream for topping (optional)
Put blueberries, water, and 1/2 cup sugar in a sauce pan and start heating (medium heat). Simmer while making dumplings Combine flour, baking powder, salt and 1 tsp sugar. Cut or rub in butter. Add enough milk to make soft dough. Drop dumpling dough in tablespoon amounts into blueberries, letting them sit on top. Cover tightly and cook for 15 minutes without opening lid. Serve hot. Optional - top with whipped cream.
This is a fast, easy dessert that still has some of the features of desserts that take longer. It’s got both fruit and dough, both liquid and solid, both tart and sweet.
The berries go on, and then you don’t really have to take care of them (beyond maybe stirring a couple times).
The dumplings are pretty quick. With the small amount of butter, it was easier to rub the butter into the flour mixture than to cut it in.
Once you’ve got the dumplings in and covered, again it basically requires no attention.
The name of the dish is supposed to come from a “grunting” sound made while the dumplings are cooking. My kitchen is too loud to verify the “gruntiness” of this cooking process.
Easy, fast, and delicious. Great for using up those blueberries that are on their way out that you don’t want to eat fresh (as ours were in this dish). A great Nova Scotian dessert.
Super easy and quite nice! A great recipe for kids to make with minimal help.
A lot of our recent culinary adventures are starting with this book:
From the Hearth: Recipes from the World of 18th Century Louisbourg by Hope Dunton
We picked this up at the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site, probably the most impressive historical recreation in Canada. The French had meticulous records from their attempts to colonize various parts of Canada, and Louisbourg was no exception. Using said records, Parks Canada rebuilt about 1/4 of the Fortress (which was destroyed by the British) and it is populated with both people and historic animals each summer.
The Fortress has a couple of restaurants with authentic fare in an 18th-century setting – recreated flatware, costumed servers, non-electric lighting, etc. We liked the food, so we bought the book.
These posts describe what we’ve cooked out of this book of historic recipes:
Meat dishes:
Vegetable dishes (often meaty too):
Egg dishes:
Desserts: