Barmbrack Bread and Butter Pudding with Marmalade
Buttered barmbrack spread with orange marmalade, soaked in an orange-scented custard and baked until crisp and caramelised on top, soft and wobbly inside.
Method
Butter one side of each barmbrack slice thinly, spread the marmalade on top and cut each slice diagonally into two triangles. Day-old brack soaks up the custard better and holds its shape.
Add in this stepButter, softened 16 gBarmbrack slices (1.5 cm thick, at least a day old) 4Orange marmalade 2 tbsp
Butter the inside of a 750 ml ovenproof dish with the remaining butter and arrange the triangles buttered side up, leaning and overlapping like scales. Let the pointed tips stick up: they become the crisp bits.
Add in this stepButter, softened 4 g
Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl, then whisk in the milk, cream and vanilla, and finely grate in only the orange part of the orange zest; the white pith is bitter. Pour the custard evenly over the bread and press it down gently with the back of a spoon.
Add in this stepEggs 2Milk 160 mlDouble (heavy) cream 80 mlCaster sugar 30 gVanilla extract ½ tspOrange (for zest) ½
Leave it for so the bread drinks up the custard; this is what keeps the inside moist. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160 °C, and have ready a roasting tin large enough to hold the dish and a kettle of hot water.
ovenSprinkle the sugar evenly over the top. Set the dish in the roasting tin, pour hot water into the tin to come halfway up the sides of the dish (a water bath) and bake in the oven at 160 °C for . It is ready when puffed and golden, with just the centre wobbling slightly when you shake the dish. Take care not to burn yourself when pouring the water and lifting the tin out.
Add in this stepDemerara or light brown sugar (for the top) 2 tsp
ovenLet it rest for after it comes out of the oven so the custard settles. Serve warm on its own, or with vanilla ice cream or cold cream.
Cook's tip
The water bath keeps the custard silky and stops it splitting. Apricot jam is a good stand-in for marmalade. No barmbrack? Any fruited tea loaf or raisin bread works.
Cooking it at camp
Put a trivet in a lidded Dutch oven, add 2 cm of water and stand an enamel dish on the trivet, then bake with gentle coals below and on the lid for a water-bath effect. Mix the custard at home and carry it in a sealed jar in the cooler, below 5 °C.