Chocolate, bread & butter pudding

Recipe adapted from here (serves 6)

White bread- 10 to 11 slices, crusts removed 

Dark chocolate- 50 gms, roughly chopped

Milk chocolate- 100 gms, roughly chopped

Cocoa powder- 2 tbsp (good quality dark one like Green & Blacks)

Butter- 75 gms, cut into cubes

Double cream- 450 ml

Dark rum- 4 tbsp (optional)

Vanilla extract- 1/2 tsp (optional)

Caster sugar- 80 gms

Cinnamon- a generous pinch

Eggs- 3

Slice each of the bread slices diagonally to get 4 triangles. Bread that is a day or two old would be ideal.

Place the dark chocolate, milk chocolate, cocoa powder, butter, cream, rum (if using),  sugar and cinnamon in a heat proof bowl and melt over barely simmer water. Make sure the bowl doesnt touch the water.

Using a spatula, mix well until the chocolate, butter and sugar have completely melted.

Take it off heat, add the vanilla extract, and using a balloon whisk, give the chocolate mix a good beating to emulsify it and bring everything together.

Once slightly cool, add the eggs into the mix, one by one, beating well after each addition. You can also whisk all 3 eggs in a separate bowl and tip into the chocolate as well.

Pour about an inch of chocolate sauce into a rectangle/square oven proof dish.

Arrange a layer of bread triangles over the chocolate in rows, in an overlapping manner.

Pour half of the remaining chocolate sauce over the bread, as evenly as possible, and using a fork, gently press the bread slices down so it gets covered with the sauce.

Place the final layer of bread triangles and pour over all the remaining chocolate sauce, again making sure the bread is properly covered with sauce.

Cover the dish with cling film and place at room temp for 2 hours and then transfer to the refrigerator for a minimum of 24hrs. This step is very important. The more it soaks the better.

When ready to cook, preheat oven to 180C

Remove clingfilm and bake the pudding for 30 to 35 minutes.

The top would be a bit crunchy, while the inside would be gooey.

Leave to stand for about 10 minutes, after which you can scoop into dessert bowl and have with cold custard or pouring cream.

Notes: Original recipe called for 150 gms of dark chocolate. I bought milk chocolate by accident and hence had to compensate with cocoa and reducing the sugar so it wasnt cloyingly sweet. 

If using 150gms of dark chocolate, omit the cocoa and milk chocolate, and increase the caster sugar amount to 110 gms.

This dessert is not overly sweet. It was just perfect for our liking, but if youd like it sweeter then increase the caster sugar amount.

The best part of this pudding is that it can be prepared ahead and when ready to serve can be chucked into the oven to serve warm.

Stays fine covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Butterscotch-brioche bread pudding- A guest post for Collaborative Curry

Collaborative Curry was one of those first blogs that I stumbled upon, when I was new to the whole blogging scene; and Sunitha was the first food blogger I ever spoke to. We had a loooong skype session once and it was so so much fun:). Again, like I have mentioned before, I have a list of food bloggers I'd like to meet some day, and Namitha and Sunitha definitely make the list. But till then, I guess we will just have to make do with FB, skype, chats and blogs. 

I was mighty thrilled when Namitha wrote in asking me to do a guest post while she was away vacationing in India. I of course jumped at the opportunity and put my mind to work thinking what I'd whip up for a blog that has some amazing recipes and gorgeous pictures. After some brainstorming, we decided on the Bread Pudding and I was glad because it is one of my current favs. But wait a minute, that was not the case till recently. Care to read the story? Well! here goes...

My first taste of bread pudding was when I was in school or something. My mums favourite dessert to make when we had guests over was either the bread and butter pudding, a pineapple pudding or a biscuit pudding. She claimed they were all super easy to make which is why it made its way through to our parties ever so often. Last Christmas, when we were all home in India and while discussing the Christmas menu, we asked her what was dessert and these 3 options came up again. And my brother and myself in unison said, NOT AGAIN!! That's how much we detested the three desserts. (The fact that we still ended up having pineapple pudding after much discussion, speculation and arguments is another story altogether). 

With this aversion to bread pudding in mind, I never really bothered giving it a go anywhere else. It is mostly available in the dessert section of almost every pub menu along with the quintessential British favs sticky toffee pudding and apple pie, but I never really favoured it since it was something I'd grown up with. But it all changed, just recently. We decided to hit a riverside pub on one of those glorious spring evenings when the sun was out and every Londonite was either out in the park or in a pub. You would know by now that the pub culture in UK is so flourished, that even on a Monday afternoon, you can see pubs full of the working crowd. No Monday blues in UK I guess:)

Anyways, we grabbed a couple of beers and ciders and basked in the sun like nutcases who were sun deprived and invariably ended up having dinner there. Pub food is not so awesome, unless you go to a theme pub like a Thai or a Spanish inspired one and other than the usual burgers, fish and chips and bangers and mash, the options are not too varied. But I somehow always love pub desserts which I feel is as authentic as it can get. I'm probably wrong about this, but it works for me. I decided on a treacle tart but as luck would have it, that was sold out and my only other option was a brioche bread pudding. Ok what the hell I thought, never tried a 'brioche' bread pudding, so ordered it without much expectation. The pudding arrived and it looked as unappetising as I thought it would be, but one bite into the warm and gooey pudding and boy was I wrong. It was just absolutely delish.

The fact that it was made of brioche just took it a notch higher and the slight caramel taste was fabulous. The only thing I didn't quite enjoy was biting into the raisins, but that's a small price to pay for a tasty bowl of bread pudding. I called up my mom the next day and told her that the bread pudding she makes is not bread pudding at all and to chuck her recipe out. She replied that if she were to get her hands on bread with such high content of butter and eggs, even her pudding would taste great. I argued and have promised to make it for her when I have a chance. I was determined to replicate it at home and so set about googling the recipe. I was not too successful at it, but with some tweaks and adjustments to this recipe, I was able to recreate something close to what I had envisaged. The recipe is quite forgiving and the options are endless. This is however the basic version which since then, I have made quite a number of times, and the results just keep improving. The final outcome doesn't look all fancy and pretty, but trust me, it tastes so darn good, you have to make a conscious effort to not go for a second bowl.

I couldn't think of a better way to show my gratitude to Namitha and Sunitha than offer them a slice of this fabulous pudding, from across the pond. Head over to Collaborative Curry to check out the recope.
Hope you guys enjoy it and thanks once again for this lovely opportunity.