Winter is all about pudding. I’m not saying that you should skip main course altogether — after all, I love a good roast, risotto, curry, soup or slow-cooked stew — but no meal in Winter is complete without a pudding.
A warm-from-the-oven pudding can make your life worth living during Winter. Outside one has to contend with bracing winds, the bitter cold, unfriendly rain and grey skies but inside, a good home-cooked meal followed by pudding can make you and your dinner guests feel secure and loved. And who doesn’t want that?
This Raspberry, Almond and Chocolate Pudding — essentially, a fancy bread and butter pudding — is a cinch to make, even after a long and tiring day. I use pain au chocolat from the bakery and a mixture of fresh and frozen raspberries, saving the fresh raspberries for garnishing. If fresh raspberries are prohibitively expensive just go with frozen ones.
What are you waiting for? Eat the love.
- 4 pain au chocolate (chocolate pastries) or croissants
- ⅓ cup caster sugar
- 3 tablespoons water
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 250 mls milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean essence or paste
- 1 cup raspberries (frozen is fine)
- ⅓ cup slivered almonds
- ½ punnet raspberries to garnish
- Thickened cream, ice cream or vanilla yoghurt to serve
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Tear pain au chocolate roughly and put into a loaf form.
- Heat up a small saucepan and add water and sugar. Stir to combine.
- Bring to the boil and then simmer on low-medium heat for around 5 minutes until the mixture caramelises and turns orange/brown.
- Turn heat to low and add beaten eggs, milk and vanilla to saucepan. The toffee mixture will set at once because of the change in temperature so heat it up gently, avoiding scrambling the eggs, and whisking all the time to dissolve the toffee.
- Pour over pain au chocolat and then sprinkle almonds and one cup raspberries on top. Leave to sit on kitchen bench for 10 minutes so that the pastry absorbs the custard mixture.
- Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes.
- Serve with extra raspberries and cream.
