Fruity Bread and Butter Pudding

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This Fruity Bread and Butter Pudding is nothing traditional – it has a good dose of caramelized apples, gorgeous black currants and dollops of blueberry preserve.

I am in love with the word DESSERT. You have a dessert – any kind in the vicinity and I am not there is just not possible. I am specially fond of warm desserts – they are like my comfort dessert.  Indro loves bread and butter pudding and we make tons of versions of the good old bread and butter pudding.  We make it with chocolates even! Maybe, I’ll share that recipe someday.

Bluey, my 1 year old, doesn’t quite like apples. I have to find new ways to feed him apples. He likes baked apples somehow. So I try to create a lot of recipes with apple – smoothies, pies, crumbles everything.

Check out my Apple Recipes

Apple and Banana Smoothie | Apple Pie | Apple Crumble

 
Recipe Inspiration

Some time back I had come across a Jamie Oliver recipe of bread and butter pudding with baked rhubarbs. [I can’t find that page anymore!]. Now we don’t get any rhubarbs in India and I decided to swap it with caramelized apples. The experiment obviously was quite a hit among the one and a half men in the house.

What alternatives you can use

I have used some blueberry preserves for this recipe. If you are in a place where you get fresh blueberries you can use them. You can use marmalades if you like (I am not very fond of them though!) You can use toasted walnuts in your bread and butter pudding too.

How I am managing this challenge #BakingWithTina

Doing anything with a hyperactive one year old is a HUGE task. A few days back Rohan Kachalia asked me how I am managing time and doing this challenge with this little one in tow. Bluey completely hates his toys, no matter how many kinds of toys we get for him. He is always found in the kitchen pulling out drawers and playing with pots and pans. While I was trying to bake the Chocolate-chip Muffins he was busy ruining my kitchen. I actually let him do it. I let him do whatever he wishes to, this way he is kept busy while I go on clicking photos and making stuffs.

My so-called ‘modular kitchen’ is his modular play ground. It’s looking like a dump yard with every possible electronic appliance up on the kitchen counter to save their mortal lives!

I have also had accidents when he has tried pulling down the table cloth – and along with it everything on top. Right now, while I am writing this post, he is trying to pull the laptop down and I just gave him the newspaper to keep him busy!

Let’s Get into our Fruity Bread and Butter Pudding  

Bread and Butter pudding is probably the easiest pudding you can make. All you need is white bread, some table butter, milk and egg. It was poor man’s dessert at a time – but now you get exotic bread and butter puddings so it got promoted within the elite (in dessert universe)!  

What Bread to Use

Plain simple white bread works just fine. You should use stale bread for this pudding. Trim the sides of 7-8 white bread slices. Now don’t throw the sides okay? You can tear them with hands and bake/air fry them to make really nice croutons for soups. Or just pulse it in a food processor and use it as breadcrumbs. These crusts are actually very good for health so don’t discard. Read about it here.

Slice the breads in triangles and butter them. I butter it only on one side, but my mum does it on both sides! Spread some blueberry preserve on them and keep aside.

Apples

Peel and core 2 apples. Chop them up in small bits. In a pan heat 2-3 teaspoons of sugar and add the apples. Let it cook in its own juice on low flame for 2-3 minutes. We’ll add some grated cinnamon. Apples and cinnamon are like sisters joined at hips. They are awesome together. We’ll also be using some nutmeg later. Remove from flame and keep aside.

Custard

The most important part of any pudding is getting the custard right. The proportion of egg and milk should be right. Too less egg or too much milk will result in runny custard – it will not set the pudding. I use a little bit of cream to add to the richness of the taste.

Pro Tip: If you are following any recipe – follow that completely. Don’t reduce the proportions. This is where people go wrong.

I have used 3 whole eggs, 400 ml of whole milk, and 1/3 cup of full cream and 1/4^th cup of sugar to make the custard rich and creamy. This recipe doesn’t need too much of sugar because caramelized apples are sweet and so is the blueberry preserve. I have also added some grated nutmeg to give it an awesome flavor.

Arranging

Grease a baking pan or a casserole dish with some butter. Place the bread slices in a layer. Spoon in half of the caramelized apples and currants on the bread layer. Put another layer of bread and repeat the layer of apple and currants.

Pour in the custard and let the bread soak this custard for 30 mins.

Pro Tip: Don’t skip this soaking time, If you put this pudding straight away for baking you will end up with crouton like breads!

Sprinkle some demerara sugar on top after the custard is soaked in..

Baking

Bake it in a pre-heated oven for 30 mins at 180C/356F

Tada.

How easy was that? Or did it sound too much. It might sound that way since I break my recipes up in several steps so that it’s easy for readers.

Okay do let me know the following

1. What kind of recipes you want me to experiment?
2. Are you liking my new found love of food photography – it’s all iPhonography.
3. Do you want me to share some vegan baking recipes as well?

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Here’s the little man digging into his pudding

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