White Chocolate Bread & Butter Pudding with Amaretto soaked Fruit

Bread and butter pudding is also one of the first dishes that I ever made in home economics (aka domestic science) when I was in secondary school. The reason we were tasked with making it then was because it illustrated how leftovers could be transformed into something truly delicious and pleasurable to eat. Traditionally, bread and butter pudding would have been made with stale bread and as such, I will concede that the recipe that I give here is very indulgent including as it does buttery croissants, chocolate and Amaretto soaked sultanas – but it still remains faithful to the original characteristics of a bread and butter pudding.

There is something so comforting about this dish. I could eat bowlfuls of it without hesitation. As the white chocolate custard bakes in the oven, the custard soaked croissants puff up and absorb the custard to create a pudding that whilst being comforting also possesses a certain simplicity.

Feel free to adapt the recipe to include different dried fruits or experiment with different liqueurs. Personally, I believe that there is something magical about the croissant, Amaretto and white chocolate combination. They just work so well together.

 

I usually associate bread and butter pudding with autumn or winter, but I genuinely believe that this version wouldn’t look out of place served at room temperature on an Irish summer’s day.
 

Ingredients:

50g sultanas
50ml Amaretto

350ml milk

300ml double cream

1tsp of vanilla paste

200g white chocolate, broken into chunks

6 croissants

4 eggs

4 egg yolks

25g butter, melted

25g caster sugar
 

Method:

1. The night before: soak the sultanas in the Amaretto overnight to give them a chance to re-hydrate in the liqueur.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.  Butter a 25cm x 20cm baking dish, place on a baking tray and set aside.

3. Cut the croissants into thickish slices and layer up in the buttered dish. Pour the mil and cream into a saucepan and heat over a gentle temperature until warmed up but not bubbling. Remove from the heat and add the white chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon until it is completely melted into the cream mixture.

4. Separately, place the eggs, egg yolks and caster sugar into a mixing bowl and using a hand whisk, beat together until well mixed together. Still whisking, gradually add the warmed cream mixture. This is your white chocolate custard.

5. Drizzle the melted butter over the croissants and sprinkle over the Amaretto and sultanas. Pour the white chocolate custard over the croissants and press down the croissants so that they absorb the custard.

6. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and the custard is just set in the centre. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.

 
Serves 8.