The basis of a good bread and butter pudding is simply some kind of bread, sugar, butter and a custard mixture. You can use all kinds of bread (from your homemade sourdough to an enriched brioche or Panettone) but the secret to a delicious pudding is the custard and giving the pudding a chance to soak in all that custardy goodness before baking.
This Hot Cross Bun Bread and Butter Pudding recipe takes leftover hot cross buns and adds buttery custard to make a wonderful Easter Sunday dessert.
INGREDIENTS
300ml full fat milk
100ml double cream
4 egg yolks
75g golden caster sugar
50g to 100g butter
1tsp vanilla extract
zest from a lemon
6-8 hot cross buns
METHOD
In a large jug, whisk together the milk, cream, egg yolks, half of the sugar, lemon zest and vanilla extract until combined.
Cut the hot cross buns in half as if you were going to toast them, then cut the hot cross buns in half again, top to bottom (through the cross). Butter each side of the hot cross bun pieces and place them all into an over proof dish, squished up against each other. You want to choose a dish that doesn’t leave much space (the dish I used was about 25cm square).
Pour over the custard mixture. Make sure the mixture gets in all the spaces in the dish, wiggling the pieces to make sure the custard is underneath too. Leave the pudding to soak up the custard for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180 fan/gas 5.
Sprinkle over the pudding the remaining sugar and add some more little pieces of butter.
Half fill a roasting tin with boiling water and place your pudding dish into the water (make sure the water doesn’t go over the top of the pudding dish). Place them both into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes until the top of the pudding is golden and puffed up (the layers will shrink down a little when it cools).
NB. The hot water gently and evenly cooks the custard but you can leave out this step if you wish.
You can serve this hot from the oven with more fresh cream or leave to cool and cut into pieces like a cake.
