Christmas 2015 was awesome. It was our first on IOW in our new house and for once, we finally had enough space (and ovens) to cope with my large extended family. Poor COD was inundated with my family. I think we are all an OK bunch but we can be full on. And opinionated. Anyway, not since 2008 had my whole family been together for Christmas. I am the oldest of four, two of us are married with five kids between us and the other two are partnered and then the parents as well so a fair number. Anyway, my youngest brother took his girlfriend off for a potter around town and returned with a panettone. A gift from the fantastic Italian restaurant he waited in over his uni summer holidays. No one likes panettone in my family and this thing has been sitting in our cupboard ever since. I had intended to take it to the food bank or something but never quite got round to it.

Wasn’t it therefore fortuitous that COD bought me Jamie’s Comfort Food for Christmas and I happened to open it on the ‘Panettone bread and butter pudding’ page. I don’t really like bread and butter pudding but we had friends coming for the weekend and I needed a pudding. COD poo-pood the idea but I ploughed on regardless. How bad can something be if the recipe calls for custard, dark chocolate and marmalade? The pudding went down a total treat and COD ate most of it cold over the next day or so!

I have found a handy video of the great (opinions on breastfeeding aside) JO cooking this on morning telly. The bread he is using is actually called Pandoro and there are lots of comments online about how you can’t actually use panettone as it has fruit in it but as I made this weeks ago with panettone and only read the comments today, I can confirm you can absolutely make this with actual panettone.

Ingredients

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Lightly grease a 28cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Bash 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar in a pestle and mortar until fine, then mix with the remaining demerara so you have a range of textures. Tip into the tart tin and shake around to coat. Tap gently, then tip any excess back into the mortar for later. Slice the edges off the panettone in strips and use them to line the base and sides of the tart tin, pressing down hard to compact and create a pastry-like shell.

Halve the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds, then put both the seeds and pod into a pan on a medium heat along with the cream, milk and butter, and simmer for 5 minutes or until the butter has melted. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk the eggs and golden caster sugar for 2 minutes, or until smooth. Whisking constantly, add the hot cream mixture to the bowl until combined, then discard the vanilla pod.

Pour one-third of the custard into the base of the tart and leave to soak in for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, tear up all the remaining panettone into rough chunks, soak them in the bowl of creamy custard for a minute or two (the more it sucks up, the better!), then layer up in the shell you’ve created, snapping up and adding little chunks of chocolate and dollops of marmalade between the layers – there’s no need to be neat about it, you want a range of heights, saturation and textures. Pour over any leftover custard, leaving it to soak in if necessary, then sprinkle with the remaining demerara sugar. Bake for around 25 minutes, or until set. Allow the pudding to rest for 10 minutes, then serve with cream, custard or ice cream, if you like – it’s delicious cold, too, if you’ve got any leftovers!

In other news:

• AROD finally has her curtains up. I went and bought extendable rods which are a nightmare as they are so high up you can’t jiggle the curtain rings over the join – annoying. Will have to make a suitable plan.
• Had the most amazing day today watching lambs being born at Dunsbury Farm. Superb experience and another wonderful reason for Island living
• Sampled the Ryde nightlife last night. Ooooh, some sights. Men in jeggings with loafers, large ladies in small jumpsuits with more VPL than I have had the viewing pleasure of in a long time. Decided we were too old and the bar was too loud so went for food instead.
• The veg beds should be in by this time next week. I have a lot of vegetables to grow…..
• LOD and EEROD go back to school next week which is a wonderous thing.