Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding from Kitchen.

On Thursday night this week we had a dinner date. For dinner we had a choice of 'Steak and veggies or Lamb shanks? Ps. Pete makes pretty good Lamb Shanks :)' Well I think there was a clear winner even before we were given the choice, we were sold on lamb shanks. Not that there is anything wrong with steak and veggies but Lamb Shanks mid week, I was not passing that up!

It was my job to bring pudding so thats exactly what I did. Travelling pudding.

Now I LOVE bread and butter pudding but ew yuk to sultanas! I have an aversion to dried fruit in some things. They are allowed in a couple of things and thats it. Christmas Pudding, yes. Hot Cross buns, sometimes. Bread and Butter pudding, hell no! So when I saw Nigella Lawson 's Chocolate chip bread pudding from Kitchen, how could I resist? It was so easy to transport too and just put it all together when we got there and bung it in the oven for 45 min. The melted chocolate chips throughout it made it so decedent and rich. When it says it serves 4-6, it definitely can serve 6 unless your still hungry from dinner as its very filling. There was four of us and only a tiny bowl of left overs and we were all supporting food babies after.

All I kept thinking after making this is the endless possibilities which can be made with the simple custard mixture and bread... you can add frozen raspberries which would give a lovely sharp tang to the smooth vanilla flecked custard, or make Nutella sandwiches out of the bread and then drown it in custard, you could add chopped nuts on top to give more crunch, or zest lemons into the custard and fill the bread with lemon curd, or add cocoa powder to the custard and make a chocolate based custard, use brioche/ croissants/ hot cross buns or finger buns instead of plain bread... the variations are unlimited!

I substituted a few things in this recipe and added a vanilla pod and seeds because when there is an opportunity to add vanilla I jump on it. I also used 300mL of cream instead of 125mL as suggested because I didn't want half a carton of cream to sit in my fridge and go to waste, this made the custard richer than it should have been but I hate wastage. If I was to make it again and I knew the rest of the cream wasn't going to go to waste I would have followed the recipe exactly and only put in 125mL of cream and 500mL of milk.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding. (BYO Style).
(Recipe adapted)
Serves 4 hungry people or 6 for dessert

250g white bread, cubed (Nigella suggests to use stale bread but I just used plain bread from the freezer, thawed)
100g chocolate chips
3 eggs
40g brown sugar
2 tbs dark rum (I used a spiced rum called The Crackin')
300mL pure cream
325mL milk
1 vanilla pod, scraped
4 tsp raw sugar (Nigella uses demerara sugar but raw sugar is very similar and alot cheaper)

- Start by buttering the oven-proof dish your going to bake the pudding in (I used a 23cm diameter x 6cm deep dish) and put your cubed bread in there to sit while you make the custard.

- In a bowl, whisk the eggs, brown sugar, cream, milk and vanilla seeds and pod in a bowl until well combined. If you are making this to bake straight away add your rum now too. I added mine right before I put the pudding together in case it started to cook the eggs. (Pour into a leak-free container if taking this dessert BYO.)

- I scaled my rum in a jar, raw sugar in a little container and chocolate chips in a zip-lock bag. Covered my dish of bread, packed my pink enviro bag with everything and off we went.

- When I got there I added the rum to the custard mix, took the pod out, tossed the chocolate chips with the bread then poured the custard mix over the bread and chocolate chips. Let it sit for about 20min then put it in a preheated 170 degrees Celsius oven for 45 min.

- Allow it to sit for 10min. Then dig in! Be warned... VERY RICH!