Luxurious leftovers - Panettone Bread Pudding

Actually, I am being a little misleading here. The Panettone wasn't 'leftover' as such, much more that I bought it in the Christmas sale in the supermarket for a bargain price, but I did have more cream and eggs than I envisaged, as the planned ice cream I was going to make didn't happen, so whilst I am being a little disingenuous, there is some element of truth within.

And yes, I am meant to be on a diet, January being the month of soup and sacrifice. But whilst there are leftovers in the house there is not a hope of this happening. New Year's Resolutions are so passe anyway; is there really any difference in my starting a diet a couple of weeks into January?

You could use whatever bread you choose for this, as long as it is stale. There is no point in trying this with fresh bread as the slices will not soak up the custard sufficiently. The consistency of this is quite eggy, in a nice way, so the bread has a wobble rather than still swimming in custard. I have never been a soggy bread girl. If you want more moisture, then I don't think you can go wrong if you drizzle a little cream over. You can begin the diet tomorrow.

Panettone Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

Six slices of Panettone (or bread of your choice to fit the dish you want to use)

3 eggs

3 egg yolks

500ml double cream

500ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g sugar

Method

Leave out the Panettone so that it becomes slightly stale, but not hard. A couple of hours maybe.

Place the Panettone in a suitable dish. Layer the slices so that they sort of overlap.

Put the eggs in a bowl. Whisk them a little, then add the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Once the 'custard' mixture is ready pour about half over the bread and push the bread into it using your fingertips. Leave a few minutes to allow the bread to soak up most of the liquid. Only then add the remainder, in stage if necessary to allow the bread to soak up the custard. Keep pushing the bread into the custard to ensure all of the bread gets some coverage.

Once the bread is submerged, place the dish into a bigger dish (I used a roasting tin) and pour boiling water into the roasting tin so that it comes up about two thirds of the way up the sides of the dish which contains the bread pudding.

Cover the pudding and roasting tin with foil, piercing the foil a couple of times to allow steam to escape.

Place in a preheated oven, 180c, for about 45 minutes. Once the pudding appears 'set'. remove the foil and allow the top to brown, about 15 minutes. Keep an eye on the pudding at this point!

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. I generally leave the pudding about 20 - 25 minutes or so before serving, with cream, and perhaps a dusting of icing sugar if you feel like it.