A pudding and a prize

Miraculously, there was a bit of the fig and orange challah left over by Sunday, so I decided to go ahead with that bread and butter pudding I mentioned. And ohmygoodness it was well worth it. I realise that this is not really the place for a pudding recipe, what with it being a breakfast blog and all, but it works so well with the sweet white challah, and I'm all in favour of using up leftover stale bread, so don't want to waste the  opportunity.

I based this on Hugh-Fearnley Whitingtall's recipe in the River Cottage Bread book, but with a few tweaks of my own, not least the challah itself, which replaces the plain white bread in the original recipe. If you aren't up for making a whole loaf of bread just in order to make a pudding, I'd also add that I often make this with day-old hot cross buns, which are obviously, well, one a penny, two a penny, at this time a year (if only...). If you don't have enough leftover bread you can make up the difference with a different loaf (there are actually a few stray bits in this one from a wholemeal loaf, although I wouldn't recommend making the whole pudding with wholemeal bread - with 6 egg yolks and all that cream there's really no way that this could be described as healthy eating)

Challah bread & butter pudding

About 500g-600g day-old challah (see here for the recipe)
300ml double cream
300ml milk
1 vanilla pod
zest of one orange
a handful of raisins
jam for spreading (any flavour - I used blackcurrant, but apricot would be nice, or maybe even marmalade)
6 medium egg yolks (freeze the whites and use them for meringues of something later)
150g caster sugar
demerara sugar to sprinkle

Oven 170C

1. Butter a shallowish casserole. Slice the bread and cut it into triangles or (if the bread isn't square) into squares. No need to be too anxious about the size etc. Butter each slice and then spread a very thin smear of jam on each and arrange in the casserole with one slice in front of another, a bit like in a toast rack, only leaning on each other. Don't go mad with the jam - the custard is already quite sweet. Poke any last wee bits of bread in where you have space. Put the raisins in between the slices as you go, trying to make sure that they don't remain too close to the surface where they are likely to burn during cooking.

2. Put the cream and milk in a pan. Split the vanilla pod and scrape in the seeds, then add the empty pod and bring to just boiling. Remove from the heat and leave for 10 minutes then remove the vanilla pod and grate in the orange zest.

3. In a large bowl or jug whisk the caster sugar and egg yolks together briefly. Then pour the hot milk mixture into this, whisking all the time. Pour this custard over the bread, making sure that it soaks each piece. You should have a few bread peaks sticking up through the custard sea. Tuck in any stray raisins that are above the surface. Leave the whole thing to soak up the custard for 20 mins or so. Boil a kettle.

4. Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top of the pudding. Put the casserole into a large roasting tin and carefully pour in some boiling water until it comes about half way up the side of the casserole. It's easiest to pour the water in once the tin is in the oven!

5. Cook for 20-25 minutes until the custard is just set.

6. Serve warm. But it's also very good cold the next day. Leftovers of the leftovers.

7. Start diet the next day.

In other news, I found out today that the two jars of marmalade I entered in the World's Original Marmalade Awards have both won awards! The pink grapefruit got a bronze and my orange marmalade got a silver award in the 'dark and chunky' category. I'm chuffed to bits, especially with the silver, which got 19/20. Tis was the first time I'd entered. Needless to say, I'm already thinking about how I can go one better in 2014!

My first sourdough

10am: So the day is here. My sourdough starter has been bubbling away for a week or so now and I'm going to embark on my first sourdough. I'm planning on doing all the necessary kneading in between delivery and assembly of a cabin bed, getting a huge tree cut down and swimming lessons, so I probably could have chosen a better day, but it's a busy week, so here we go. I feel surprisingly nervous. I think I'm probably making this a bigger deal than it needs to be. It is, after all, nothing more (quite literally) than flour and water and a pinch of salt. What could possibly go wrong, right? Wish me luck.

I'm using a recipe from the River Cottage Bread book (the 'My Sourdough' recipe), which starts with a sponge, so I got this going last night with a big dollop of my starter mixed with some of the flour and some warm water to make a batter, and by this morning it looked like this:

You might not be able to see them (try clicking on the pic to make it bigger), but it's covered in tiny holes where it's all fermenting away busily. I am told that fermentation makes all the goodness in the grain available to us, the eaters of the grain, and that bread without added sugar makes it more available because added sugar allows the grain to ferment more quickly, but keeps much of the goodness locked up. That was the technical bit, but I'm afraid I'm not too hot on the terminology. Or indeed the scientific facts...

11am: I followed the River Cottage kneading instructions to the letter and have ended up with a lovely silky dough. It's still quite sticky, but I'm told that's quite normal for a sourdough. It's sitting in a bowl having a think. Meanwhile the men came to put the bed together. It ended rather poignantly with one of them telling me that he too slept in a cabin bed the same as our new one in his 1-bed flat, while his sons slept in bunk beds in the same room. As I prodded the holes in my dough after its first prove I found myself wondering about the situation that had left him thus and felt a bit melancholy. This is what comes of living with a frustrated writer (MrB), and of having the time to ponder these things when kneading dough.

5.30pm: Back from the swimming lesson. The loaf has been sitting in its floury linen for two hours for its final rest before baking and is now in the oven! It seems to have done its 'oven spring' nicely and is browning up a treat.

6.00pm: Ta-da! It smells a bit like cheese on toast, and is full of lovely big holes so the wild yeast was obviously doing its job.

I remain amazed by the fact that this started life as a pile of flour and a jug of water.

Smells divine. I need to work on my slashing technique. There's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

You will note from my timings that this is not aimed strictly at breakfast. However, sourdough bread, in my experience, makes fantastic toast, so if there's any left over after dinner, it'll be great with a bit of marmalade or honey in the morning. Yum.

Now, I need to go and lie down. the excitement has quite done me in.

Farmhouse Breakfast Week #4

 Last week's barm bread was such a roaring success that the family have been clamouring for more, so yesterday I had a day pottering about in the kitchen baking bread and making marmalade (again). I've just finished a big job, so it's quite a luxury to have a few days stretching out that I can fill with kneading and chopping and bubbling and baking. I thought that for breakfast today I'd finish off the bread, toasted, with some of the pink grapefruit marmalade that I also made yesterday. Both bread making and marmalade-making are jobs that require a bit of coming and going over a day, so getting all the timings right and fitting it in with the school run reminded me why I am not running my own artisan bakery. Especially when I discovered that MrB had snaffled the beer I needed for the bread and replaced it with a smaller bottle that wasn't enough for the recipe. Gnash.

Anyway, that particular crisis resolved, I was ready for the off. This time I chose an organic ale from the Black Isle - keeping things local (well, Scottish, anyway) and the results were equally lovely.

The beery flavour was a bit less pronounced this time, but the crust was beautifully soft and chewy. I really recommend having a bash at this - it's fantastic.

The pink grapefruit marmalade is something I've been meaning to try for ages. I have a bit of a thing for orangy-pinks (see yesterday's rhubarb smoothie), and the colour of the skin and the juice of pink grapefruit fit in nicely with that particular fetish, so I was hoping the colour of the finished marmalade would too.

When I made the Seville marmalade a couple of weeks ago, I used the whole fruit method, but this time I decided to used the sliced fruit method, which is also very straightforward. I wanted slightly more refined chunks in this, and I figured it would be easier to achieve this way. You also get a slightly clearer set by doing it this way - with the dark marmalade I usually make it doesn't matter, but I wanted to try and get something of the colour of the fruit this time. I based this recipe on one from Pam Corbin's River Cottage Preserves Handbook.

Pink Grapefruit Marmalade 

(makes about 8 jars)

1kg pink grapefruit
1 kg jam sugar
1 kg demerara sugar
100ml lemon juice

1. Wash the grapefruit, then halve and squeeze them. Put the juice in a big bowl
2. Slice the grapefruit into chunks of whichever size you prefer. and add to the bowl, with all the pithy gubbins.
3. Add 2.5l of water, cover and leave overnight.

4. Put the lot into a pan, bring to the boil and simmer for about 2.5 hours, until the peel is tender and the liquid has reduced by about a third.
5. Add the sugar and lemon juice. Dissolve the sugar completely, then bring to the boil and boil hard until you get a set (104 degrees C, or a wrinkle on a cold plate).
6. Remove from heat and leave for 10 minutes. If there's a lot of scum on the top, stir in a small knob of butter to disperse it.
7. Stir gently then put in sterilised jars and seal immediately.

The result was a lovely orange colour. I think we're talking winter sunset, as compared to yesterday's winter morning sky in a rhubarb smoothie. And it has a nice grapefruity bitterness that suits my marmalade tastes just fine.