Bread and butter pudding - recipe by Gregg Wallace... yum!

I love bread and butter pudding! I had few bad ones in the restaurants though - tough like brick and no 'crust' on top... Decided to finally make my own, which turned out to be pretty easy task and so rewarding :) I changed Gregg's recipe only a little by adding chocolate chips and omitting the addition of mixed peel and jam (which I'll definitely add next time!). The advantage of b&b pudding is that you can use (and you actually should) slightly older bread and almost any kind of bread will do! I used a baguette which turned out perfect.
The below recipe comes from Gregg Wallace's book 'Gregg's favourite puddings' and if you watch MasterChef UK you know that there's no better recommendation for a good desert than Gregg's opinion (in this situation his recipe) :)



"Bread and butter pudding is made by layering slices of buttered bread scattered with raisins in an oven dish into which an egg and milk (or cream) mixture, commonly seasoned with nutmeg (and sometimes vanilla or other spices), is poured (...) The earliest bread and butter puddings were called whitepot and used either bone marrow or butter. Whitepots could also be made using rice instead of bread, giving rise to the rice pudding in British cuisine. One of the earliest recipes for a bread and butter pudding was written down by John Nott in 1723." - by Wikipedia.org

How to make it...


Ingredients:
- 40 g butter
- 4 slices of white bread, crust removed (I kept the crust)
- 75 g apricot jam, optional
- 2 tablespoons chopped mixed peel
- 3 tablespoons sultanas
- 475 ml milk
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 2 eggs, beaten
- cream to serve, optional

Use 15 g butter to grease an ovenproof dish, spread the remaining butter over the bread, then spread with jam. Cut the bread into small triangles and layer in dish sprinkling with mixed peel and sultanas between the layers.
Put the milk and sugar in the saucepan and heat to just below the boiling point. whisk in the eggs then pour the mixture over your layered bread. Leave to soak for minimum 30 minutes.
Place the dish in the large roasting tin. Pour boiling water into the tin to come at least halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake in a preheated to 180 C oven for 45 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 190 C and bake for further 10 minutes or until crisp and golden on top and just set. Serve warm with cream.

Smacznego!