Week 38 - Chocolate bread and butter pudding

Another week, another choc fest! After last week’s Mississippi mud pie I was planning to go for something a little more on the savoury end of the spectrum for this week’s bake but we had a celebration planned and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate was requested!

Our good friends James and Lotte got engaged a few weeks ago and this past Friday we finally got the chance to celebrate with them. As it was such a special occasion I asked the happy couple what they would like me to make for them and James being a huge chocolate fan requested anything chocolaty. I decided that as there has been a turn in the weather recently it was time to break out the autumnal recipes and try a hot pudding, bread and butter to be exact. For this I had to look no further than the cooking/baking legend that is Delia Smith and we all agreed this recipe did her proud.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/chocolate-bread-and-butter-pudding.html

Ingredients

• 9 slices of good quality white bread, one day old, taken from a large, medium sliced loaf. My bread was a day old but could really have done with being a bit more stale, it was a bit soft and squidgy, being a bit harder would have been better I think, it would have given the pudding extra crunch.  

•  5 oz (150 g) dark chocolate (70-75% cocoa solids), broken into small pieces. I did my usual and mixed milk and dark chocolate, 50g milk to 100g dark.

•  3 oz (75 g) butter

•  15 fl oz (425 ml) whipping cream

• 4 tablespoons dark rum

•  4 oz (110 g) caster sugar

•  good pinch cinnamon

•  3 large eggs

To serve

•  well chilled pouring cream

Method

1. Begin by removing the crusts from the slices of bread, which should leave you with 9 pieces about 4 inches (10 cm) square. So now cut each slice into 4 triangles. Next, place the chocolate, whipping cream, rum, sugar, butter and cinnamon in a bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, being careful not to let the bowl touch the water, then wait until the butter and chocolate have melted and the sugar has completely dissolved. I have never really bothered doing this proper method of melting chocolate and butter before, I usually just stick them in the microwave but seeing as though this is a Delia recipe I thought I better do things properly or she might jump out of the laptop and tell me off!!
2. Next, remove the bowl from the heat and give it a really good stir to amalgamate all the ingredients.Now in a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and then pour the chocolate mixture over them and whisk again very thoroughly to blend them together.
3. Then spoon about a ½ inch (1 cm) layer of the chocolate mixture into the base of the dish and arrange half the bread triangles over the chocolate in overlapping rows. Now, pour half the remaining chocolate mixture all over the bread as evenly as possible, then arrange the rest of the triangles over that, finishing off with a layer of chocolate. Use a fork to press the bread gently down so that it gets covered very evenly with the liquid as it cools.
4. Cover the dish with clingfilm and allow to stand at room temperature for 2 hours before transferring it to the fridge for a minimum of 24 (I left it for 24 hours to soak) (but preferably 48) hours before cooking.
5. When you're ready to cook the pudding, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C). Remove the clingfilm and bake in the oven on a high shelf for 30-35 minutes, by which time the top will be crunchy and the inside soft and squidgy. Leave it to stand for 10 minutes before serving with well-chilled pouring cream poured over.

The votes are in and the future Mr and Mrs LOVED it!! They also said I could make their wedding cake...in the shape of an elephant...not sure if they were serious about either me making the cake or it being an elephant (they had both had a few drinks by this point.....) but I am happy to give it a whirl!!

I have to say the pudding didn’t look super appealing before it went in the oven, I thought it looked like I had poured Bisto gravy over some leftover sandwiches but I should have trusted Delia, she is a baking institution and sure enough after 35 minutes in the oven it was crispy, gooey, chocolaty goodness. It was the perfect treat to warm your cockles as the autumn nights have started to draw in. We not only got the chance to try a new bake this week but also a new type of cutlery, the spoonfork (a spoon on one end, fork on the other), which Lotte ‘liberated’ from a conference in Maastricht. This proved to be most useful for the bread and butter pudding as you could use the spoon for the gooey bits and fork end for the crunchy bits, it was fantastic. Good find Lotte!!

Let’s see if I can have a chocolate free week next week......

Have a tasty week xx Linds xx

P.S I also made my second cake for Free Cakes for Kids this week, another Princess Cake, this time I was lucky enough to be able to deliver it to the family’s home which was lovely.