Passionate about Puddings…Marmalade Bread and Butter Pudding

Marmalade Bread and Butter Pudding

Well, it’s Sunday again and I have woken up determined to cook a traditional British Pudding to follow our garlic and rosemary roast lamb. Don’t ask me why, but these things just get me sometimes! Today I am passionate and pudding-driven – do you think that’s a recognisable mental ailment? Probably, and even my childish delight at a little alliteration is probably right up there, too!

So what’s it to be? My friend Joyce makes wonderful Bread and Butter pudding and given I have half a loaf of white bread knocking around, from when I was too lazy to go to Waitrose to buy any decent stuff and went to the garage instead, this seems the perfect solution. However, I spy a bottle of my home-made marmalade (Seville orange recipe to come next week!) and wonder what will happen if I combine the two. Let’s find out shall we?

You will need: 6 slices of white bread with the crusts cut off, butter, marmalade, a handful of raisins, 1 tablespoon of Demerara sugar (use white granulated if you haven’t got any), 15fl ozs milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, three eggs, 1 tablespoon of caster sugar.

Method:

Grease a shallow baking dish with a little butter
Spread the bread generously with butter and then marmalade and cut in to quarters
Place half of the quarters on the bottom of the baking dish (marmalade and butter side up) and sprinkle a few raisins over them
Place the remaining bread quarters on the top, marmalade side up and sprinkle with a few more raising
Whisk the caster sugar in to the milk, and continue to whisk in the eggs and the vanilla essence
Pour all over the bread slices and top with sprinkled Demerara sugar
Cover with cling film and leave aside for at least 30 minutes to allow the custard mixture (yes, that’s what you’ve just made!) to soak in to the bread
Place the dish in the oven, Gas Mark 5, 190 degrees non-fan, 170 fan for 30 to 45 minutes or until the top is all crispy and caramelised. Serve with plain vanilla ice-cream. This was SO simple to do and tasted just delicious, other alternatives would be to mix a little whisky in with the marmalade, or add some chunks of crystallised ginger.