Baked Bread Pudding (1896)
Reader ratingsA baked bread pudding from the War Department’s 1896 Manual for Army Cooks: dry crumbs soaked in boiling milk, enriched with egg yolks, butter and a little sugar, lightened with beaten whites and baked brown.
- Recipe makes
- 6 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The crumbs soak in the hot milk for about 20 minutes while you separate the eggs. Dry the crumbs a day ahead, or in a low oven for 20 minutes, if your bread is fresh.
Baked bread pudding in an earthenware dish.
The story behind the recipe
Three tablespoons of sugar to two quarts of milk is all the sweetening the army’s 1896 bread pudding gets, which makes it the dish at its plainest: dry crumbs, milk and eggs. It comes from the Manual for Army Cooks that the War Department printed in 1896, 28 years after the Fort Larned inspection. The book places it among its puddings and ends with the instruction “Eat hot or cold.”
How did the army make bread pudding in 1896?
The manual starts with a quart of dry crumbs. Boiling milk is poured over them and left until they soften, then the yolks and sugar go in, then the butter and nutmeg, and last the whites, beaten “to a stiff froth” and stirred in quickly. The mixture goes straight into a greased dish and bakes “to a brown” for an hour to an hour and a half. On the same page the manual makes a cracker pudding the same way and notes that “Hard bread may be substituted for crackers,” so the soldier’s biscuit could end up as dessert too. Army cooks were putting old loaves to use long before 1896: Sanderson’s 1862 handbook says that “if there is any stale bread to be had, three or four loaves should be cut into pieces” for his pork soup.
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Making it today
We halve the manual’s quantity and use 4 eggs, the equivalent of the eight it allows at most for the full batch. Its pudding is barely sweet, and we keep it so; serve it with a spoonful of jam or syrup if you want more. The beaten whites are there to lift it, so expect it to puff in the oven and sink back a little as it cools. With no oven heat in the manual, we bake it at 350°F (180°C), the moderate oven it uses for the cracker pudding beside it, until the center is set.
In How Was Bread Baked at a Frontier Fort? it shows what the army’s own cookbook did with bread that had gone dry.
1 quart bread crumbs, dry. 2 quarts sweet milk. 6 to 8 eggs, whites beaten to a stiff froth. 3 tablespoonfuls melted butter. 3 tablespoonfuls sugar. Grated nutmeg enough to flavor.
Put crumbs into a deep dish. Heat milk to boiling and pour it over the crumbs. Soak until crumbs become soft. Add incorporated yolks and sugar, then the melted butter and nutmeg; finally stir in quickly the beaten whites.
Put mixture at once into a well-greased baking dish, and bake to a brown. Time of baking, one hour to one hour and a half. Eat hot or cold.
Recipe makes: 6 servings
Ingredients
For 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 6 servings.
- Dry bread crumbs, from plain bread2 cups
- Whole milk4 cups
- Large eggs, separated4
- Sugar1 1/2 tbsp
- Unsalted butter, melted1 1/2 tbsp
- Grated nutmeg1/4 tsp
- Butter for the dish1 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 cups dry bread crumbs, from plain bread
- 4 cups whole milk
- 4 large eggs, separated
- 1½ tbsp sugar
- 1½ tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ tsp grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp butter for the dish
Equipment
Saucepan- 2 mixing bowls
- Whisk or hand mixer
- 3-quart baking dish, about 3 inches deep, well greased
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease the baking dish with the butter for the dish.
Put the bread crumbs in a large bowl. Bring the milk just to a boil, pour it over the crumbs and leave for about 20 minutes, until they are soft.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, stir in a ladleful of the warm crumb mixture, then stir it all back into the crumbs, followed by the melted butter and nutmeg.
Beat the egg whites in the second bowl until they hold stiff peaks. Stir them quickly into the crumb mixture, leaving a few streaks.
Pour at once into the dish and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, checking from 45 minutes, until puffed and brown on top, a knife pushed into the center comes out clean, and the center reads 160°F (71°C).
Serve hot, or leave it to cool and serve it cold.
Nutrition
325calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 6 servings
- Servings
- 6
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Half the manual’s quantity; about ⅓ cup of crumbs to each serving.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Any plain bread works; the Army Potato Bread (1862) is the right one. For the manual’s fruit version, use 1½ cups of crumbs and fold in 1½ cups of chopped raisins, tossed in a little flour, after the whites, and bake it to the same signs, allowing about 10 minutes more. Keep leftovers in the refrigerator and eat within 3 days. Contains milk, egg and wheat.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After War Department, Manual for Army Cooks (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1896), Baked Bread Pudding
Recipe details
- Course
- Dessert
- Dish family
- Desserts & Sweets
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1890s
- Main ingredient
- EggsMilk & cream
- Difficulty
- Easy