Apple bread and butter pudding

Bread and butter pudding

 

Let be honest, bread and butter pudding is a pretty great thing. It's warming, has custard and is ridiculously versatile - what's not to like? From substituting bread for croissants or brioche, flavouring the custard with coffee or chocolate and adding juicy liquor-soaked raisins, there's something for everyone. So for autumn, why not use up the glut of apples you bought for £1.50? This buttery, fruity recipe is meltingly delicious and perfect for those chilly autumn afternoons.

Buttered bread

APPLE BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING
bread* - I used rosemary and potato bread
butter, room temperature
2 egg yolks
150 ml double cream
100ml milk - you're using double cream and butter, so you might as well have full-fat**
100g sugar
2 apples, cored, peeled and evenly sliced
cinnamon
nutmeg
a big handful of raisins
cognac
dried apple, diced
more double cream, to taste
*it's best to use bread which is a couple of days old because it holds it shape hence not becoming soggy. As the Berry says, you don't want a soggy bottom...
**it's important to build up fat to insulate for the winter

The first layer

Soak the raisins overnight in the cognac. Before using, pat the raisins dry to get rid of excess moisture, and set the rest of the cognac aside for later.
Spread the sliced bread generously with butter. Unless you're dairy intolerant, there are no reasons why you should compromise and use margarine.


Jam-packed full of raisins

In a buttered and sugared tin**, layer the buttered bread with thickly sliced apples and raisins, similar to a dauphinoise. Repeat this until your baking tin is about three quarters full.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until your mixture has doubled in volume and become paler.

Heat the cream in a saucepan until it begins to bubble.
When the cream begins bubbling, take it off the heat and add the milk to it.
Once it has cooled down a bit, strain into the yolk/sugar mixture, whisking the whole time.◇◇

Sprinkling with sugar gives a brilliant toffee taste when cooked

When your baking tin is stuffed to the brim, liberally pour over with your custard.
Place in a preheated oven on 200C and bake for fifty-five minutes. When you take the pudding out, it should have puffed up and become golden and firm.
For the sauce, use the ratio of 1 part cognac to 2 parts cream.
In a medium-sized saucepan over a medium heat, reduce the cognac until you have a thick glaze.
Add dried the dried apple and double cream to your reduced alcohol and on a low heat, let it cook for half a minute, and take off the heat.

I would suggest that you don't put raisins on top, because they will catc,. And burn.

Sprinkle the pudding with caster sugar and scorch with a blowtorch or grill for a crème brûlée touch.

Serve with lashings of sauce and a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.

**Butter the tin as you would normally, then sprinkle sugar over. Shake out excess sugar so you have a fine sprinkling on all sides. This helps to caramelise the pudding, and adds to the toffee-apple taste.
◇◇ If your custard becomes scrambled eggs die to the cream being too hot or not whisking enough, strain the mixture through a sieve.

YUM!

Tarte au citron Meyer

Tarte au citron is a classic French tart filled with a tangy lemon custard. I used Meyer lemons which are a cross between a lemon and a mandarin. They are quite sweet in comparison to other lemons, yet still quite tangy.

A nice even bake :-)

175g 00 flour (this flour is very fine, so makes the pastry more crumbly, it's fine to use normal plain flour though too)
140g unsalted butter, diced
30g soft brown sugar
25g icing sugar
zest of one lemon

5 eggs
160ml double cream
the zest and juice of 3 Meyer lemons
100g caster sugar

Sieve the sugar and flour, and mix with the zest of one lemon.
Add the cold butter and rub until you achieve a crumble mixture. As there is a lot of butter in this pastry, it shouldn't need any liquid. If you do add liquid, the consequence is that the pastry will not be as crumbly when cooked.
Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for 15 minutes to harden up.

Preheat the oven to 200C and butter a tart case.
Roll the pastry to less than a 1 centimetre thickness, and roll over the tart case.
prick the pastry case and blind bake it in the oven for 20 minutes. Instead of using baking beans, you can use baking paper with a similar sized cake tin on top.
Whilst the cake is cooking, whisk the eggs until they increase in size by about one and a half.
Add the sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice to the eggs, but continue whisking.
When thoroughly combined, pour in the double cream, and whisk again. You can add milk if you want a thinner mixture.
Pour into the tart case and bake for about half an hour, or until the filling is a little wobbly.

Serve cold with a spoonful of clotted cream.


You could

• decorate with candied lemons
• spread the base with lemon curd or melted dark chocolate, and cover with the filling mixture
• use tangerines instead of lemons

Rosemary Apple Charlotte and Milk ice-cream

4 small apples (washed and peeled -with the skins set aside for later- and diced)
dark brown sugar, or muscavado sugar (for a toffee, nutty taste)
100ml double cream
400ml milk (goat's milk or hazlenut milk would also work really well)
3 egg yolks (you could use the egg whites for a meringue or accompanying apple souflées
a few sprigs of rosemary
2 well-toasted (BURNT) pieces of toast.
a few speculos (speculos are french biscuits which you'd normally have with your coffee- they have a toffee-like sweetness yet the texture of a biscotti meets digestive)

Preheat the oven to 160C.
In a saucepan, add the diced apples, the rosemary, and a splash of water (or calvados if you want alcohol). Keep on a low heat and leave to soften.
In another pan, heat the milk until it begins to boil, then turn the heat down and add the sugar (stirring continuously). Then whisk in the egg yolks, constantly so you don't get scrambled egg. When it is all combined, add the cream and thoroughly stir. Pour the custard into the ice-cream maker (or into a covered tub and put in the freezer).
The apple should be softened by now, so take the rosemary out and add the speculos. Mush it a bit to get a thick consitency, but not too much as it's nice to have the odd lump. Pour the apple mixture into the ice-cream maker, or generously drizzle into your tub to achieve a ripple effect.
On a lightly oiled baking tray, put on the apple skin and leave in the oven until the moisture has started to evaporate. Then, turn the grill on to maximum, and keeping an eye on them (like I should have done better) wait for them to harden and crisp up a bit. It should take a minute at maximum. When they are perfectly coiffed, gently pat them dry with a piece of kitchen towel to get rid of excess grease.
In the toaster put in two slices of toast, and when they are reasonably charred, take them out and generously slice them so you get reasonable diamonds/slithers/any other pretty shape .
The custard should have solidified quite a bit by now, so add the toast to it, and then leave it in the freezer to set.

Serve with the apple crisps and perhaps a dark-chocolate sauce.