Slow cooker bread and butter pudding recipe

Classic dessert, hello! I was honestly surprised this worked, but work it did. It was also very easy and quite quick, even if the instructions look complex.

Ingredients for 4:

6 slices of bread (I used wholemeal - sour dough, in fact)
400 ml (1 2/3 cup) milk
2 eggs
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup/a small handful dried fruit, such as raisins
3 tbsp margarine or butter


Directions:

Pre-heat your slow cooker to High while you prepare the dish. Boil a full kettle as well. Find a 2 pt dish and check it will fit into your slow cooker. Grease it with a little margarine. Butter the bread, on both sides if you're feeling swish, and cut each slice in half, ideally diagonally. Mix everything from the milk down to the cinnamon in a bowl. Arrange the bread in your cooking dish in a pleasing manner with each slice sitting roughly vertically and overlapping with the next slice. Sprinkle the raisins in between the slices. Now pour the egg/milk mixture over the bread, making sure you distribute it evenly. Put your cooking dish into the slow cooker dish.

Now take the kettle and carefully pour the close to boiling water in between the inner cooking dish and the slow cooker stoneware until it comes about 2"/ 5 cm up the side of the inner dish. It's really important you pre-heated your slow cooker, otherwise the stoneware will shock and crack at this point.

Put on the lid and cook on High for 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 hours. It's done when the egg custard is set and the top is a little browned but you won't get the crustiness you get in the oven.

Verdict:

About a 4 out of 5. We don't often have puddings so it was quite fun to have one for a change. It tasted fine but, quite honestly, I prefer it done in the oven as you get those nice crusty bits of bread on top. I liked the addition of spices which I hadn't tried before and would like to try a bread pudding where the bread is torn up and soaked in the egg  mixture before cooking as the crusty top issue wouldn't matter so much.