Stodgy not soggy

As a child, my father was fed bread and butter pudding often, even though he disliked it. So it was never served at home during my childhood and I have rarely eaten it.

I did, however, make a panettone-based version the winter before last, which was delicious. So when Head Chef wanted bread and butter pudding for Sunday lunch, I was quite willing.

 

We had an 'archived' ingredient in the form of some dried apricots that I had bought long ago and kept forgetting about, so we used that instead of sultanas or other dried fruit. We also decided to add orange marmalade (because why not?) and reasoned that this would make it sweet enough without sprinkling on any sugar.

 

Orange and apricot bread and butter pudding

Makes 6 greedy portions (or 8 meaner ones)

 

6 slices of wholemeal bread

Butter

Marmalade

140-150g dried apricots

2 eggs

100ml double cream

400ml milk

ground nutmeg and ground cinnamon

Grease a suitable dish. Butter the slices of bread, cut each into 4 triangles (leaving the crusts on), and smear marmalade generously on each triangle. Cut the apricots into little pieces (about 6 pieces per apricot).

 

Combine the cream, milk, beaten eggs and good shake of spices to make a sort of custard.

Lay 8 triangles in the bottom of the dish, sticky side up. Scatter over half the apricots. Lay 8 more triangles on top, also sticky side up. Scatter over the remaining apricots. Finish with the rest of the bread, again sticky side up. Pour over the custard mixture as evenly as you can.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C fan for about 30 minutes.

 

 

Orange and apricot bread and butter pudding (slightly caramelised on one edge)

 

We served it with double cream because you can never have too many gratuitous saturates.

 

The verdict: tastier than it looked but nothing special. It was a bit stodgy - and Head Chef thought that the apricots were chewy - but it didn't have a soggy bottom. I doubt we would make it again in exactly the same way, but we'll certainly be eating up the leftovers.