Apple and Calvados croissant butter pudding
Bread and butter pudding is a classic English dish, but the French have their own version too in pain perdu. Here Will Torrent combines the two in a pudding that’s simply shouting out for second helpings.
Servings: 6 people
Ingredients
- 500 ml milk
- 500 ml double cream
- 1 vanilla bean split
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 star anise
- 2 tablespoons Calvados liqueur
- 3 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 200 g sugar
- 2 croissants stale but not too stale
- 2 tbsp butter melted
- 2 Braeburn apples
- 2 tbsp semi-dried apples chopped
- Large pie dish or baking pan well greased
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) Gas 6.
- Put the milk, cream, vanilla, cinnamon, star anise, vanilla and Calvados in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to the boil.
- Put the whole eggs, egg yolks and sugar in a stand mixer or in a mixing bowl using an electric whisk and whisk until pale and fluffy.
- Slowly pour the boiled cream into the egg mixture, whisking vigorously until evenly incorporated.
- Pass the mixture through a fine sieve and discard the vanilla bean, cinnamon
- stick, star anise, and any bits of eggshell that may have accidentally crept in!
- Halve the croissants horizontally and brush the melted butter over them.
- Arrange them in the prepared pie dish or baking pan.
- Halve, core and roughly chop the fresh apples. Scatter these and the semi-dried apples over the croissants in the pan, then pour the custard over the top.
- Using a spatula, press down the croissants so that they start to soak up some of the lovely custard mixture.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. It should still be a little runny in the middle.
- Serve with vanilla ice cream, or just some whipped cream flavoured with a little lemon and vanilla extract