Summer pudding

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Summer pudding is a simple English dessert. It’s made by layering sliced white bread with fruit and fruit juice in a deep dish. The bread soaks up the juices, the dish is left overnight, and then it’s turned out onto a plate to serve, usually with cream.

It was most popular from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The current name shows up in print in 1904, but similar puddings existed earlier under names like Hydropathic pudding and Malvern pudding.

Fruits often used include raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants, and blackberries. Less common are tayberries, loganberries, cherries and blueberries. Slightly stale bread works best because it soaks up the juice more easily.

Hydropathic pudding was a version made in 19th‑century health spas. By the 1920s, summer pudding was a classic British dessert, but it faded mid‑20th century. It came back in the late 1980s, helped by chefs reviving old recipes, and became popular again in the 1990s and 2000s as a traditional dish and as a base for new ideas.