Princess Diana's Bread Pudding Blends Classic Comfort With A Sweet Twist

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Princess Diana was an icon who won the whole world's heart. Credited with bringing the royal family to the forefront of popular culture back in the '90s, people were obsessed with every aspect of her life — including all of the princess' favorite foods. According to "Eating Royally," a cookbook by Darren McGrady, a chef for Britain's royal family, Princess Diana's favorite dessert was Irish bread and butter pudding. Only, it was McGrady's recipe she liked the best. In his cook book, chef McGrady shares the bread and butter pudding recipe that, according to him, Princess Dian deemed "the best bread and butter pudding in the world." 

McGrady's recipe is a classic bread and butter pudding, consisting of crustless white bread cut into triangles and dipped in melted butter, layered with raisins, then doused in a rich egg and cream custard. McGrady's decadent twist is to soak the raisins in Amaretto before layering them into the pudding. Once assembled, the bread and butter pudding is baked in a water bath in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes. As the final touch, he covers the top in granulated sugar before broiling or brûléeing it, finishing the caramelized sugar top with a sprinkling of slivered almonds and a dusting of powdered sugar.

Thanks to the vanilla paste, the flavor of the custard is decadently rich, creamy, and aromatic. It's a luxurious background for the buttery taste of the bread and nutty fruitiness from the amaretto-soaked raisins. McGrady recommends serving the bread and butter pudding with fresh berries and a drizzle of heavy cream.

While we're very familiar with bread pudding stateside, bread and butter pudding is a more classic and specifically British comfort food. Technically a type of bread pudding, bread and butter pudding is a simpler recipe with less variation and a different order of assembly. While bread pudding uses chunks of stale bread soaked in custard and baked into a cohesively thick, dense, and soggy cake, bread and butter pudding relies on slices of white bread cut into even triangles. Chef Darren McGrady's version uses cubes of bread as the first layer, followed by a layer of amaretto soaked raisins, then places the white bread triangles on the top.

This layering of thin slices makes for a more delicate, melt-in-your-mouth texture as opposed to the thick, dense, cake-like bread pudding typical to the U.S. That brûléed sugar topping also creates a crunchy contrast to the custardy interior. Furthermore, the slices of bread in bread and butter pudding are dipped in melted butter, layered, then covered with custard right before baking, whereas a bread pudding recipe, like Catherine Brooks' rich bread pudding. soaks the bread and other ingredients in the custard before pouring it all into a baking pan. 

Finally, bread pudding stateside is known to take on many different ingredients to elevate it. With the exception of chef McGrady's amaretto twist, bread and butter pudding doesn't usually stray away from its butter-forward flavor.