Recipe: Bread and Butter Pudding with Rum, Banana and Chocolate Chips

"Traditionally, Bread and Butter Pudding is all about using leftovers, and this recipe certainly is, says Mercy Fenton in her weekly column. "Over-ripe bananas and stale baguettes got the A-treatment here, and finished up delicious."

Bread and Butter Pudding with Rum, Banana and Chocolate Chips

Ingredients

300gr of stale bread or a baguette, sliced and buttered (roughly 30gr butter)

4 whole free range eggs

300ml milk

300ml cream

60ml spiced rum

1 tsp vanilla extract

50gr soft light brown sugar

25gr 53% chocolate chips.

2 small ripe bananas diced.

2 tbsp. flaked almonds

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
• Heat the cream and milk in a pot to just below boiling point.
• Add the rum and vanilla and set aside.
• Meanwhile, butter the base and sides of an 8 or 10 inch Pyrex dish, or you could use some small individual dishes instead.
• Cut the buttered bread in triangles and layer up in the dish, scattering banana and chocolate chips between the layers.
• Break the eggs into a bowl with the sugar, then break up with a whisk, then slowly add the milk mixture onto the eggs, mix well then pass through a sieve onto the prepared bread.
• With a spatula, push the bread down into the custard mix, for the best result before cooking allow the pudding to sit in the fridge for two or three hours to soak up all the custard.
• You can even prepare it to this stage the night before you need it, and then just press the bread down again before cooking the next day.
• Just before baking, sprinkle with flaked almonds.
• To cook, place the Pyrex dish into a roasting tin or another larger dish, place in the oven, than pour boiling water into the larger dish until it comes two thirds of the way up the pudding dish, this is called cooking in a Bain Marie.
• It will stop the egg mixture curdling and give you a beautiful, moist, smooth pudding.
• Bake for between 20 and 30 minutes.
• When the pudding is golden brown and just firm to the touch, insert a skewer and check it comes out clean.