Summer Pudding

We were sitting in a small cafe in New York a few years ago, back when we lived in the city, and a friend breezed in, hot from a morning walk, blotting her forehead. She saw us, waved a drippy hand, and said, "Have you made your summer pudding yet?"

There are stranger how-do-you-dos, I suppose. Especially in New York. But this one certainly took us back. We shot each other that look that married couples perfect and said, "Um, no."

Well, I'll give her this: summer pudding has since become a necessity around here, an old-fashioned, unmolded, British dessert that requires minimal effort in the heat but pays off big time when served. Plus, it's made with white bread. The kind that I grew up with. (Or as we used to say in the South, "that I come up on.") Sliced sandwich bread. OK, not the stuff with hydrogenated oil and corn syrup. Blech. Instead, sliced white bread that's heavenly soft without anything fake in the mix.

Here's the way to get a summer pudding done.

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Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

OK, now it gets serious. Really serious. Because I love peanut butter. I think that may have had something to do with writing the darn peanut butter book. I could live on the stuff. Have, in fact. When I was a kid, I wanted PB&J at every turn. My mother insisted on olive loaf and white bread. Of course, she was trying desperately to keep me straight.

We made these little cookies from said peanut butter book the other night--but then gave them a twist with the filling. More on that in a minute. First, the cookies.

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