Day 7 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

Hello and welcome to the seventh day of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza.

Mel and I have been in the kitchen preparing some Easter goodness to share with you today. Mel has cooked up some yummy Easter baskets which are really good enough to eat.

[Just a reminder before I start that last year I made Easter egg cupcakes. You can find the post about these HERE.]

I have made one of my all time favourite puddings with an Easter twist. There are a few puddings which I love to cook.... bread and butter pudding in one of them. At Easter time when the hot cross buns are everywhere in the bakeries I make a "hot cross bun and butter" pudding. The custard base is the same as the regular variety, I just substitute the bread for the buns.

Here's a few photos from my cooking...

In this pudding I have used the choc-chip hot cross buns from Baker's Delight. In other puddings I have also used the regular fruit filled variety which make a lovely pudding as well. I like to prepare my custard mix first and leave it to 'settle' while I'm constructing the pudding. I have included my custard mix recipe further down in this post.

 

I have sliced the each bun into about 4-5 pieces from top to bottom and spread a little butter on each slice.

 

This photo below shows the buns in my baking dish. Rather than laying the slices flat as I would with regular bread slices, I have kept the buns together and separated the slices slightly.

 

Pour the custard mixture into the baking dish.

Leave your prepared pudding sit for a while. I leave it at least 30 minutes. What this does is allow plenty of time for the custard mixture to be absorbed by the buns... basically they go very soggy (not the best culinary description). At this point you may have a little custard mix left over, and will want to top up the mixture in the baking dish. Having the soggy buns will give you an even pudding-like consistency once the pudding is cooked (instead of a pudding with pieces of dry bread through it).

 

By the time my pudding was cooked and out of the oven, it was night time, so unfortunately I couldn't get a good photo of my pudding. But is was yummy.

 

For the custard mix, you can use your regular bread and butter pudding recipe. I'll share mine if you haven't got one. Mix all the ingredients together and whisk thoroughly.

• 2 cups (8 fl oz) milk

• 2 cups (8 fl oz) pouring or single cream

• 4 eggs

• 2 egg yolks extra

• 2/3 cup sugar

• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

These puddings need to be cooked carefully. Many recipes call for a water bath. With a larger baking dish, I find a water bath hard to use, so I cook my pudding in a lower heat oven for a slightly longer time than a recipe calls for. Use your recipe as a guide. My recipe above will make a large pudding, I usually cook it for about 1 hour 20 minutes in a 140-150 degree C oven. As with most of my cooking, I check it as it cooks to see how things are going. You don't want your pudding to 'bubble', if this is happening turn your oven down.

This recipe is a good one for the kids to make too. Get them cracking the eggs and whisking the mixture in a big bowl. You can always strain the mixture to take out any egg shell bits that might have slipped into the bowl during this process, I have done this on many occasions. They can spread the butter on the buns and arrange them in your baking dish, too. It's very rewarding for kids to be able help cook part of a meal.

We'll see you on Wednesday for our last day, day 8, of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza. We've been having so much fun sharing our Easter ideas.

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Fiona x