Maltese Cuisine

Puddina

Cuisine: Maltese Created by Rita O’Dwyer

Maltese ingenuity sees day old bread soaked in water mixed with a generous amount of dried fruit, chocolate and custard powder. Puddina is served in slices with black tea as an afternoon pick me up.

Ingredients

1 loaf day-old bread
375g sugar
2 tbsp custard powder
2 tbsp cornflour
4 tbsp cocoa
2 eggs, beaten
500g mixed dried fruit
250g almonds
250g glacé cherries, halved
Vanilla to taste
4 tbsp whisky, brandy or sherry

View Conversion table

Preparation

Preheat oven to 200oC

Tear bread into small pieces and soak in cold water for 15 minutes until soft.

Place bread in a colander and mash, draining liquid.

Transfer to a large bowl and add sugar, custard powder, cornflour and cocoa.

Stir in beaten eggs and mix well.

Add dried fruit and half of the almonds and glacé cherries. Add vanilla and whisky.

Pour into a baking dish and decorate with remaining cherries and almonds.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour (check puddina by piercing with a toothpick - should be dry when you take it out).

Can be served warm or cold.

Maltese Restaurants

Displaying 4 of 4 Maltese Restaurants.

Restaurant		Suburb
1.	The Original Maltese Cafe	Surry Hills
2.	Maha Bar & Grill	Melbourne
3.	Pastizzi Cafe	Newtown
4.	Cafe Valletta	Sydney

17 May 2012 02:34 AEST

genevieve corteses

manhattan

gr8!!!!!!!

Awesome simple easy to make recipe

28 Apr 2012 11:36 AEST

colleen

WESTON NSW

Puddina(bread-pudding)

Puddina is family Recipe to me my mother-in-law showed me how to make it different to Rita O'dywer,yummy girls. You can FREEZE it to when baked,its good.But being half Maltese myself and husband Maltese nice to learn some of there culture recipes. Always nice for Xmas,Easter.cold nights or days.

31 Dec 2011 03:05 AEST

rebecca

burnside

pudina

this is a good base recipe. i often make it with a bit of choc chips, or a sprinkle of coconut, just to make it a little intersesting.

18 Nov 2010 05:48 AEST

Pauline

Bella Vista

Pudina tal- Hobz (Bread Pudding)

Pudina is just yummy, it always goes down well. My mother used to make it all the time and it was so delicious I wish I had paid more attention to her cooking. I make it frequently and it is usually a hit with all especially my Aussie friends. One spelling mistake though, It is usually referred to as "Pudina tal-Hobz" (Bread Pudding) one "d" not two. You have to make sure that you have the spelling correct otherwise it might mean something else!!!

12 Oct 2010 09:03 AEST

Susan

Croydon Nth VIC

Yum YUMMY Puddina

Oh this brings me back to my childhood. My Nanna Mary, who migrated from Malta with a very young family always made this for us when we visited. It has encouraged me to make it for myself. Hold on to those traditions.

26 Aug 2010 11:51 AEST

now

tehran

Question

How to prepare the pastry with milk honey&Coconut

15 Jul 2010 08:17 AEST

Rayleen

Wanganui, NewZealand

Puddina

My mum made this cake years ago now i can make it. so now my family can enjoy it also. thankyou.

19 Jun 2010 09:10 AEST

A.Muscat

Bossley Park NSW Aust.

Puddina

Puddina is very nice especially if you have a lot of left over bread.We been brought up with puddina and it does not cost much to make.Nice to enjoy at any time of the day.

13 Feb 2010 09:39 AEST

Alexia

Burwood

That's one yummy puddina

I loved the puddina that my nanna used to make, so now that I've got this recipe, I will be making it for my kids. Well done.

22 Dec 2009 04:33 AEST

Susan

West Moonah

How long can it be kept

I have just made my first Puddina after seeing it on SBS cooking show and want to keep it for Xmas Day, will it be OK. Its only 3 days away ?

24 Oct 2009 09:15 AEST

pam

woolgoolga

seems excellent

this is the equivalent of english bread pussing which my husband has talked about. something is mum used to makec337A

27 Jul 2009 10:10 AEST

Ken Jelfs

Narrabeen NSW

WW2 Recipe?

Some 15-20 years ago a lady of Maltese descent made this for me. It was great then, as it is now. She claimed that her mother used this method as a substitute for Xams pudding during the German blockade of the island during the war. Flour was hard to get, so, they used stale bread [if available] and any scratched together ingredients. This was the result. Ingenuity in times of hardship?

15 Jul 2009 11:18 AEST

Jen P

Victoria Point

Oh Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was so easy to make.. Didn't have old white bread, but did have a full loaf of spicy fruit loaf, used that and added mixed fruit minus the peel and extra cherries and walnuts chopped up.. and used Bundy Rum instead of the brandy.. I agree, I am not making another Christmas Pud again, this will be superb and you just have to love our Australian multiculturalism don't you! Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful recipe.I know it will be handed down amongst our family for generations.

06 Jul 2009 04:19 AEST

Kacey Gambin

Gold Coast

Maltese at Heart

This is great to have Maltese recipes like this being made. I am half maltese and try to make Maltese recipes whenever possible. Once my Nanna who came from Malta to Australia when she was young made Puddina and me and my Dad started frothing. I can't wait to learn this recipe off by heart and make it for my Nanna when she comes! Good job :)

08 Jun 2009 08:52 AEST

Dianne

Revesby

Puddina is great!!

It was easy to make and just great to eat with coffee when the girls visited! Thank you for sharing the recipe!!

15 Apr 2009 11:22 AEST

shab

Indian

query

how much does a loaf of bread weigh?

05 Apr 2009 09:31 AEST

Bec

Darwin

bloody fantastic

everyone was so impressed with this that they even wanted to pay me to make them more. I didnt follow the recipe to the letter. I used what i had, i had dates and sultanas and i used those (but i lessened the sugar because dates are pretty sweet), and i also put in choc chips and used a good slosh of kahlua because i had some handy. if i added cinnamon and nutmeg it would be more Xmassy.

17 Feb 2009 03:19 AEST

frances graham

ST.JAMES

good1

easy too make even easier to eat!

09 Jan 2009 08:08 AEST

Jay

Canberra

Love it!

I have made this twice now and just love it! It is moist and tasty and it is the best combination of fruit cake / chocolate custard / citrus (I used Cointreau instead of sherry) you'll ever taste. It was popular with friends as well - even those who don't like cake a lot and one said she hated fruit cake until she tried this. Puddina is fabulous - thank you for sharing it.

27 Oct 2008 06:33 AEST

Mag Sorensen

Coongulla

puddina is great

I tried the recipe yesterday and I will never hve to make another plum pudding again this puddina taste just as good and is far better for you,as it has very little fat and sugar. thank you mag

Comment on this recipe

PLEASE NOTE: All submitted comments become the property of SBS. We reserve the right to edit and/or amend submitted comments. HTML tags other than paragraph, line break, bold or italics will be removed from your comment.