Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding

I knew this month's We Should Cocoa challenge, to combine a yeast-raised dough with chocolate, was going to be difficult for me, as yeast doughs are not one of my strong points. By the time I'd got two thirds of the way through the month, and still hadn't had time to tackle a yeast dough, I knew it wasn't going to happen. So, in the spirit of not wanting to avoid the challenge (and in anticipation of my entry being rejected), I offer a Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding. It's made with yeast raised dough (white bread) - I just didn't make it myself - and plenty of dark chocolate!



Pudding before baking

My basic inspiration came from this recipe on the Schwartz spices site, but I made a few changes to the recipe. I liked the idea of chocolate rippling through the pudding rather than all the custard being chocolate flavoured, but I only used 150g of plain chocolate with a 20g knob of butter. Two thirds of this was spread over the first layer of bread slices and the rest was drizzled over the top, before the custard was poured on. I made my custard from 3 eggs and 500mls of milk (closer to Delia Smith's proportions for bread and butter pudding custard) and sweetened it with 2 tablespoons of caster sugar. I left out the cinnamon but added 1 teaspoon of vanilla paste and dotted the pudding with more butter before baking. I used a 9" square baking dish which is smaller than stipulated, but I like a deeper pudding!

 

The baked pudding

This was a delicious dessert, eaten warm. The top acquired the desired crisp top (desired by me, at least!) and was filled with a soft wobbly custard and gooey chocolate ripple. The lower amount of chocolate used still gave a good flavour. Using only a small amount of sugar and a good plain chocolate meant the dessert was not too sweet either.

The only thing missing was the traditional chewiness of dried fruit, and I really think this dessert would have been improved by a handful of sultanas or cranberries, plumped up in orange juice, and perhaps a little orange zest in the custard too.

This month's We Should Cocoa  challenge (rules here) was chosen by guest host Nazima of Franglais Kitchen, but the regular hosts are Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog and Chele from Chocolate Teapot. The idea of the challenge is to incorporate some form of chocolate into a dish along with the chosen ingredient or method. At the end of each month, the host choosing the ingredient to use in the challenge posts a round-up of entries.