2012 Recipe Challenge: Week One - The Best Bread and Butter Pudding

First of all: Happy New Year!

Any of you who follow me on Twitter will know that the lovely Amy came up with the idea of cooking a recipe a week from her shiny new Marks and Spencer Kitchen Diary. As an aspiring domestic goddess I jumped at the chance to get involved, along with Kat.

First up was The Best Bread and Butter Pudding. Now with it being the first week of January I (along with most of the UK population) am trying to be more healthy so I was a bit disheartened to find that the first recipe was a stodgy pudding! I didn't let this put me off though and dusted off my pinny and rolled up my sleeves.

Recipe

Ingredients:

60g dried fruit
4tbsp brandy or sherry
400g slice panettone
70g unsalted butter
150g chocolate
300ml double cream
300ml whole milk
2 eggs, large
2 egg yolks
75g caster sugar
40g nuts, chopped

Method:

Place the dried fruit in the alcohol and soak overnight {if you’re short on time you can gently heat the mixture in a pan for a few minutes and leave to cool}

Take a large knob of buttter and grease a shallow 1.5 litre ovenproof dish.

Spread the remaining butter over both sides of the panettone slices.

Arrange the slices in the dish in overlapping layers, sprinkling the dried fruit and nuts between layers.

Break the chocolate in small pieces and put in a heatproof bowl. Sit the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water and let the chocolate melt, stirring ocassionally. Remove the bowl from the pan and leave to cool slightly.

Pour the cream and milk into a clean pan and warm gently, then whisk into the melted chocolate until evenly blended and leave to cool.

Place the whole eggs, yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat until pale and creamy.

Whisk in the chocolate mixture and then slowly pour over the panettone.

Use your hands to press the panettone into the mixture to ensure they are completely immersed.

Preheat oven to 180c or gas mark 4 for 20-30 minutes whilst the panettone soaks up the custard mixture.

When ready to bake the pudding, place the dish in a roasting tray and pour boiling water to come halfway up the side of the dish.

Bake for 40 minutes, remove from the oven and let stand for 10-15 minutes before serving warm.

As with most recipes I tweaked it slightly and opted to use dark chocolate instead of milk (just because it's my preference), Warbuton's sliced fruit loaf in place of Pannetone and Demerara sugar because my New Years Eve cupcakes obliterated my stash of caster sugar. The recipe didn't specify which type of nuts to use, so I went with hazelnuts as chocolate and hazelnuts are a winning combination in my mind!

All in all I was happy with how the recipe turned out which is a bit of a miracle as I'm not really a fan of bread and butter pudding but it's not really the kind of thing that I would make in the future.