18th Century Bread Pudding Recipe, 1796

If you had entered a kitchen in the 1790s, you would see a kitchen in transition. The familiar smell of woodsmoke would still be circling the air but fireplace would be smaller than the one you played marbles by as a child. And sugar started to grace the tables of even “Middling” homes.

By the 1790s, American women were embracing their identity as Americans. Americans grew tired of adapting their British recipes. Who has that much flour around? We all have corn!

Amelia Simmons wrote the first known American cookbook. This cookbook documented alterations that American cooks had been using for decades. The recipes reflected the American food landscape. There was more Maize (corn), cornmeal, molasses, turkey, and pumpkin. But this recipe was firmly British. It was printed in recipe books as late as 1846 in The British American Cultivator with only the slight change of an additional cup of milk instead of cream. 

18th Century Bread Pudding

Ingredients

- 10 Cups of Bread, cubed (1 Pound)
-  3 Cups Milk 
- 5 Eggs
- 1 1/2 Cups Sugar
- 1/4 Pound Butter, softened
- 1 Pound Raisins 
-  1/2 Cup Rosewater
- Nutmeg or Cinnamon to taste

- 1 Cup Cream

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter 2 9 x 5 inch pans.  Cut your bread into small pieces, place in a mixing bowl, and cover with the milk and cream. Let soak for 15 minutes, or until the bread has absorbed the liquid. Push the mixture through a colander and collect the mixture in a second large mixing bowl. Add the Sugar, Eggs, softened Butter, Raisins, Spices, and cover with the retained cup of Milk.  Bake for 45 minutes, or until the edges brown and the pudding is set. 

Notes:

There is a lot of debate about whether or not eggs were smaller in the past. Chicken eggs were not smaller in the past but if you encountered 12 eggs, you were more likely to have more variation of sizes compared to a modern carton of eggs. Egg grading and sorting wasn’t prevalent until after the 1900s.