Traditional Maltese Bread Pudding - Pudina tal-Hobz

Maltese people eat a lot of bread and on many occasions they have extra bread that is not fresh enough to eat by itself but would be a waste to throw away. This is when making a bread pudding comes in handy. I have come up with the ingredients from my mum's recipe which didn't have any amounts at all! What makes a bread pudding great is that apart from the bread you can add whatever ingredients you like best.

I myself barely eat bread nowadays (you know all those carbs!)  so tried to buy the old store bought bread that's usually also on discount!

I've served this recipe a while back to a few Maltese people living away from Malta to make them remember the tastes from home!

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf of stale bread. Both white or brown will yield a good pudding
• 3 cups of milk (or more if necessary)
• 125 grams butter. You can opt for less butter if you wish.
• 1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 100 grams sugar (or to taste)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon powdered cloves
• 100 grams chocolate chips
• 10 tablespoons coconut flakes
• Dried/fresh mixed fruit and nuts of your choice. I use:
• 1 banana
• 1 apple (shredded)
• 1 pear (shredded)
• handful of sultanas
• handful of cherries
• handful of candied peel
• 100 grams hazelnuts
• 1/2 mandarin peel
• 1/2 lemon peel
• 1/2 orange peel
• 100 grams dates

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C;
2. Smear a dish that can go in the oven with butter and line with baking paper;
3. Use only the soft part of the bread and break into small chunks;
4. Dip the bread in milk. Make sure that the bread absorbs all the milk. Throw away any extra milk by squeezing the milk out of the bread;
5. Kneed the bread into a mush;
6. Add the sugar, butter, eggs, cinnamon and cloves and mix together until smooth;
7. Cut/shred all dried and fresh mixed fruit in small pieces. The bigger pieces the chunkier the pudding;
8. Mix all dried and fresh fruit and chocolate chips in the bread mixture;
9. Add most of the coconut flakes to the mixture leaving a small portion to cover the top;
10. Move the pudding to the oven dish and cover the top with the remaining coconut flakes; 
11. Place in the oven and cook for around 45 minutes to an hour;
12. Leave the pudding to rest before serving.

How the recipe was written before! No measures at all! The language of the text is Maltese. Please ignore all my spelling mistakes.