Recipe Nina Timm Photographs and recipe courtesy of Struik Lifestyle Bread pudding has always fascinated me. The fact that you can cobble together a feather-light pudding from stale bread, milk, eggs and sugar is nothing short of a miracle to me. Of course, the pudding can become very fancy if you replace the milk with cream, and the sugar with vanilla-caster sugar, but the basic principles remain the same. The French put the proverbial cherry on top with their pain perdu, which is just a different incarnation of bread pudding. I like individual portions, so I prefer to make my bread pudding in a pan. I give this recipe a true South African flavour by using mosbolletjie (must-bun) bread. Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 500ml cream
• 5ml ground cinnamon
• 2.5ml freshly grated nutmeg
• 125ml caster sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, sliced open and seeds scraped out
• 8 slices day-old mosbolletjie bread
• 125g butter
• Cinnamon sugar or syrup for serving
• Fresh berries for serving

Directions: Beat the eggs, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and vanilla seeds together in a bowl. Arrange the slices of bread in a flat, rectangular, ovenproof dish and pour the egg mixture over the bread. Set aside for at least 30 minutes until the bread has absorbed all the liquid. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Remove the slices of bread from the egg mixture and shake off the excess. Fry each slice of bread until  golden-brown on both sides. Keep the fried bread hot in the oven while you fry the remaining slices. Serve on plates or in individual pans (if you have a few) with a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar or syrup and garnished with fresh berries. Serves 8 people Tip: If you have trouble finding mosbolletjie bread, you can use day-old raisin bread. Instead of fresh berries, preserved figs or ginger can be served with the bread pudding. You’ll find more delicious recipes in Nina Timm’s cookbook, 'Easy Cooking From Nina’s Kitchen' (R210, Struik Lifestyle).