Bread and Butter Pudding - Jaffa style

Obsessions? Who, me?  Okay, yes I've had a few - as the old song goes.  My recent obsession has been with enamel baking dishes.  I have many different sizes, and even some bright orange ones that I assume are from the 70s.  I like their lightness, and great heat conducting properties, and their ease of use. Maybe it's because our mum had lots of them years ago, like everyone else's mums and grannies. Mum's were yellow with green trim, whereas these days they are usually white with red or blue trim, and sometimes grey.  (I told you I had a lot!)  A lasting memory is of the puddings she made in these dishes.  Bread and butter pudding was a cheap way to feed a family of 6, so we had this quite often. Her version was plain, made with milk and white bread and probably margarine.  But still delicious!  I like to ramp it up a bit, so I use croissants and include cream and a big splash of rum. And to make it just that wee bit more interesting, I turn it into a jaffa pudding.  (Did you know Jaffas i.e. choc orange balls of yummy were made only in Australia and New Zealand?)

The Annual Dunedin Jaffa Race held each July down the world's steepest street, in New Zealand  (Tourism Dunedin) 

They let loose 30,000 Jaffas down the hill (some poor bugger has to label all of them), for charity. My pudding is nowhere near this laborious - in fact it is very easy, and great for a winter night's supper.
(Recipe adapted from here.)

ingredients:

1/2 cup sultanas

60mls rum

(extra butter to grease the baking dish)

4 eggs

500mls milk

300mls pure cream

1 tsp vanilla paste or extract

zest of 1 orange

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 cup caster sugar

7 small croissants (buy them ready made at the supermarket)

20g. butter

3-4mls (just over 1/2 tsp) natural orange extract (I used Queen brand)

40g. chocolate melts

2-3 tbs demerara sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C

Soak the sultanas in the rum for about 20 minutes to plump up

Grease your baking dish - 5cm deep, 17cm x 28cm or just a large enamel dish with sloping sides:)

Whisk together well the eggs, milk, cream, vanilla, orange zest, cinnamon and caster sugar in a large bowl or jug

Tear up the croissants into smallish pieces

Place half of them into the bottom of your dish

Dot small pieces of the butter over the croissants

Spread half the sultanas and rum over the croissants and butter

Add the rest of the torn croissants then the rummy sultanas

Sprinkle over the orange extract

Scatter over the chocolate melts

Pour the egg mixture over the croissants

Squish down well with a large spoon to make sure the bready mix is well covered

Sprinkle over the demerara sugar

Bake for 35-40 mins till puffed and golden and custard is set (I prefer to leave my custard a little underdone as it will firm up when cool)

croissants and greased baking dish 

ingredients   

whisking the egg custard ingredients together 

tearing the croissants into the dish and adding butter  

throwing on rummy sultanas

on go the chocolate melts

pouring on the egg custard 

squishing it all down 

sprinkling on the demerara sugar 

puffed and golden 

yep I added more cream!

Leave out the orange and chocolate element if you like, or soak the sultanas in orange juice so it is suitable for children too.  Mr P. and I however really enjoyed the jaffa style pudding, and the chocolate melts gave it a huge chocolatey boost, somewhat to my surprise!

(Yay, 2 years of blogging and my 250th post!)