@Jeruba: Here you go, honey. I always wing it, but here’s a web-based version that seems good and will give you some good measurements.
Tomato Pudding Kinda Like Susanc’s Gran Used to Serve in the 1940’s
* 1/2 cup water
* 1 (14.25 ounce) can crushed tomatoes, with the juices, or about that volume of
chopped extremely ripe red tomatoes
* 3/4 cup brown sugar
* 1 tablespoon dried basil
* salt to taste; I add pepper, too
* 10 slices white bread, cubed – not too limp, but not gnarly in texture – plus one
additional slice of bread for later (see below)
* a little bit more than 1/4 cup butter, melted; and after you pour the melted butter out
of the pan, use what’s left to make “croutons” (see below).
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly butter a 2 quart casserole dish.
2. In a saucepan over medium heat, stir together the tomatoes, the brown sugar, basil, and salt&pepper, and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat for 5 minutes, then set aside.
I would actually skip this step; the stuff’s going to merge in the oven anyway.
3. Place the bread cubes into the dish, and drizzle with melted butter. Pour the tomato stuff over all. Cover lightly – it’s nice to let some of the steam out.
4. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven. Remove the cover. Add bread cubes from the saved eleventh slice, sauteed lightly in additional butter, to top of the dish, for crunch and looks, and return to the oven for another 10 minutes. This step can be skipped, but it’s pretty.