The Easiest Recipe Ever?

I know, I know: I haven't blogged in ages.  Friends keep asking when I will be writing up recipes again, and in the interim one friend has told me that the cheating prawn Thai noodle dish has become his staple diet when he is away from his wife! 

The worst thing is that I have missed a whole summer of blogging with beautiful light in our new kitchen.  We are fortunate enough to have a roof which is one-third glass meaning we have a view of the sky all the time, and lots of light pouring into the kitchen.  Although we have had a gloriously sunny day today, by the time I took the photos it had already gone dark.  Ah, the joys off autumn.  On a positive note though, this recipe has to be one of the easiest recipe ever.  Honestly!
Spare, tired bread in our house is normally converted into bread and butter pudding.  I have real penchant for it.  But looking at the bread this afternoon, I remembered a taste and texture from way-back-I-can't-even-remember-when.  Bread pudding.  Not to be confused with one of my favourite desserts, this old fashioned English cake is custardless, and the bread is not sliced and buttered.  It's a dense cake, with no raising agent and it remains splendidly stodgy (in a good way!)

Easy Bread Pudding
20x20cm square tin, around 3cm deep lined with greaseproof paper
250g stale bread (you include the crusts)
130g sultanas, currants and raisins - in your preferred proportions
60g brown sugar
2 eggs
dash milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

1) Rip the bread into pieces and place in large mixing bowl.  Cover with cold water and forget about it for an hour.
2) After an hour tip the bread into a sieve and press down to remove the water.  Also preheat the oven to 170C.
3) Tip the bread back into the mixing bowl and mash with a fork until it is in small pieces - it will never go smooth!  Add the mixed fruit, sugar and spice and stir.  Finally add the eggs and a splash of milk and mix in.
4) Put the while mixture into the baking tin, sprinkle with around a tablespoon of brown sugar and transfer to the oven.  Bake for around 1 hour and 15 minutes.
5) Leave to cool in the tin for around half an hour, then remove and cut into about 12 pieces.

Enjoy this with a cup of tea, and be smug about your use of leftovers!