You know that phrase ‘the best thing since sliced bread’ (rather unsurprisingly coined by the first industrial manufacturer of pre-sliced supermarket bread) which pronounces something a great invention…?

It’s weird as I am not at all convinced that pre-sliced supermarket bread qualifies as such. It’s laden with chemicals, sticks to your teeth, has no texture and it doesn’t even taste like bread at all. On almost all counts, convenience aside, it feels like the exact opposite – a massive regression.

Call me a snob, but I personally prefer to go without supermarket bread unless there is absolutely nothing else to eat and I’m starving. I am a massive fan of good, old-fashioned bakeries that still make bread properly, with only a handful of ingredients required to make an awesome loaf: flour, yeast and water and certainly without calcium propionate, amylase, chlorine dioxide and L-cysteine hydrochloride (that last one, by the way, is a flour softener, traditionally obtained from feathers, pig bristles and sometimes even human hair, YUM!!) , which supermarkets cram into every loaf.

Even though I know that lots of people use soft white loaves for bread and butter pudding, this bread bias of mine made me reach for a gorgeous sourdough from a proper bakery instead. Feel free to override me, of course, and you may never even want to talk to me ever again after I revealed myself to be a bit of a bread purist, but I think using real bread makes a massive difference to the end product. The tops of the slices poking over the custard get beautifully golden and crispy, which provides a nice textural contrast to the custard-infused layers beneath.

Apart from veganising this traditional English pudding, I’ve given it a bit of a twist in anticipation of Xmas. The ‘custard’ is flavoured with gingerbread spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves), which I find most comforting at this time of the year, the layers of bread are interspersed with boozy raisins and candied orange peel and the tops of the slices are glazed with orange marmalade for yet another festive touch. Finally, to introduce a touch of colour and, as a nod to our time in Greece, I sprinkled the top with a handful of pomegranate seeds as I think it makes it look more festive. Hope you’ll forgive me for hating on the supermarket white loaf and give this recipe a try.