The one recipe I have been asked for countless times is for White Chocolate Bread Pudding - WCBP. This is another New Orleans classic recipe and one that I picked up from when I worked at the Royal Cafe. I love all manner of bread and butter puddings and this makes a delicious end to a Sunday roast dinner. It is also ridiculously easy to make, inexpensive and most importantly, people love it!
Here's my recipe for white chocolate bread pudding:
Just as with any bread and butter pudding, thicker slices of slightly stale bread are best. I always stick half loaves of bread in the freezer to have emergency bread and butter pudding reserves. For this pudding we had a nice half loaf of Turkish bread that was ever so slightly sweet.
I always keep bars of good quality chocolate in the pantry, again - emergency pudding ingredients. Break a bar of good quality white/cooking chocolate and divide in half. Half of the chocolate will be used in the pudding and the remaining chocolate will be used later for the sauce. Chop the half into smaller size chunks. This pudding was using half a loaf of bread and will serve 4, if you are making a bigger pudding use a whole loaf of bread and two bars of chocolate, one whole bar for the pudding and one bar for the sauce.
Slice your bread in 2-3 cm slices. For this recipe I used a rectangular shallow dish, roughly 9 x 4. Any dish will do and depending on the size and shape of your bread slices you may want to test that your slices will fit your dish before the next step, cutting them into triangles or wedge them into place until you are happy that your bread and dish will work together and that the pudding will have at least two layers. Then butter both sides of the bread.
Arrange the slices in the dish trying not to leave gaps. Scatter white chocolate in between each layer.....
...and repeat until you have at least two layers and top with a scattering of white chocolate.
Take 250 ml of milk and about 50 ml or so of double cream, 50g of caster sugar, break in two eggs and whisk. If you are using a whole loaf of bread double the liquid sugar and add and egg. This pudding is quite sweet and stodgy so if you don't like sweet puddings you can halve the sugar or even leave it out, I have tried this and it still works.
Pour the mixture all over the bread, making sure that the mixture hits corners and crusts. Ideally the mixture will come right up to the edge but I then take a piece of baking paper and carefully press down to ensure that the mixture covers all the bread and that the slices are even for baking. Now put to side or refrigerate if you are not going to cook straight away, I always try to make it early and leave it a bit and let the liquid soak up.
Cook for 30 minutes at 200˚C or until browned, ideally you want it to be nice and stodgy with some crispier sections on top.
Just before the pudding is done, take another 100 ml of double cream and melt the remaining half of the chocolate on the hob or in a microwave if you are pushed for time. If you are doing a massive WCBP just up the liquids and use more chocolate.
Place portions of the WCBP in bowls and pour a nice amount of the hot mixture on top of the WCBP. I think the pudding is BEST when served with strawberries and I used some defrosted ones here as it's winter but winter berries work just as well to cut through the sweetness.
This is a great pudding if you are having a large dinner party and just want to get the pudding out of the way before hand. I also love it as an emergency pudding that works in summer or winter. It's a total crowd pleaser and one friend Chris famously ate a world record seven portions at one party. I'm not sure I would recommend that but I would recommend you try this recipe as I'm sure you'll love it, I know I do!
and remember...
it's not your chutney...
it's Smy Chutney.