Donna Hay's White Chocolate and Raspberry Bread and Butter Pudding

Way back in October last year, Sandra gave me a recipe by Donna Hay out of Sunday Life magazine for White Chocolate and Raspberry Bread and Butter Pudding.  I duly acknowledged it and tucked the recipe away in my kitchen drawer, where it snoozed quite happily - until now. The inspiration to find out this recipe was the fact that I had to buy a challah loaf for a couple of other recipes (which you will see in due course), but had over half a loaf left over.  As challah is not cheap, I didn't want to waste it, and I thought of Donna's bread and butter pudding as being the perfect vehicle for using up the challah.

The recipe uses heavy cream - I only had light cream, and only half a cup of that, so I used 1 cup milk and 1/2cup light cream instead of the 1 1/2 cups cream in the recipe.  In the recipe, the suggested bread is sour dough - challah did quite nicely.

I took this into work and invited Sandra to share it with whomever she chose  - and me of course!  I got very good reviews on this pudding, and best of all, it was ridiculously quick and easy to make.  The raspberries added a contrasting sharpness to the sweetness of the remainder of the pudding.  Sandra suggested this might also be nice with peaches or nectarines - and I tend to agree.

The recipe in full, should you wish to try it, is as follows:

200g chopped white chocolate (I used white melts)
1 1/2 cups (375ml) heavy cream (I used 1 cup milk + 1/2 cup light cream)
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 x sourdough loaf, cut into 16 slices (I used 1/2 a challah)
60g softened butter
250g fresh raspberries (I used frozen)
1tablespoon raw sugar (I used more white sugar)
icing sugar for dusting (I left this out)

Preheat your oven to 160 Celsius. Heat the chocolate and cream in a heavy-based saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring, until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Place the chocolate mixture, eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and whisk to combine.

Spread the bread with butter and place in a 6-cup capacity (1.5 litre) ovenproof dish (I used Pyrex) that has been lightly greased, and dot the bread with the raspberries.

Pour the chocolate mixture over the bread and sprinkle with the raw sugar. Allow the pudding to stand for 10 minutes.

Place the pudding in its dish into a larger baking dish and pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the pudding dish. Place the pudding in the water-filled baking dish into the pre-heated oven and bake for 50-60 minutes or until golden and just set.

Dust with icing sugar and serve warm. Serves 4-6.