Winter finally hit Melbourne this week…it’s been zero degrees or very close to it for a number of mornings now. That’s cold!!!!  So, given I hate winter why am I so damn happy?  Because this weather is perfect for making one of my favourite retro foods – bread and butter pudding.

Mind you, even though it has been crazy cold, look at my pictures of Sunday morning.  Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eye. Who could be miserable on a day like this?

Another thing that will never make you miserable is this totally awesome Bread and Butter Pudding.  I mean it, this baby ROCKED!  It was perfect for this cold weather; retro comfort food at its most glorious!

So, what makes a truly great bread and butter pudding?  I put it down to the three B’s…

Lets start with the bread.  Bread and butter purists would tell you to use plain white bread. Remember last post I said that we don’t subscribe to minimalist notions here at Retro Food For Modern Times? Well that goes double for Bread and Bread Pudding.  I like to use a fruit loaf or a sweet bread like a brioche. I have also been known to use a chocolate chip hot cross bun.  Or an Almond Croissant.  Basically, I like my bread to come loaded with deliciousness before I even start!

In this instance, I had a panettone sitting in my pantry.  I’m going to make a confession here.  I have no idea where it came from. That’s the weird thing about panettone.  I can’t recall ever buying one.  Or being given one.  And yet, from time to time they appear.  Maybe my house is haunted by an Italian Grandmother who whips them up whilst I’m at work.  If so, she also does a nifty line in packing and packaging!  This was also a gluten free version so ghost nonna, if she exists, seems to be fairly on trend.

Butter.  Please use proper butter.  Not that other abomination.

Booze – I drenched the dried fruit in Pimms and left it to soak in overnight. And made an amazing whiskey caramel sauce to go with the pudding

The base recipe for this calls for sultanas.  I had some dried fruit medley left over from when I make the Plum Wonderful so I used that.

The recipe I used as a base called for Apricot Jam.  I’d previously made a chunky Apricot Spread by boiling down some dried apricots in apple juice so I used this instead.

On it’s own, the pudding was kind of  fabulous, but what sent it into the realm of super-awesome was the whiskey caramel sauce.  This was all sorts of delicious and brought some toasty, almost coffee-like flavours into the mix.  Honey and whiskey is truly a match made in heaven and I had the remnants of a lavender honey from another recipe which just added another layer of tasty goodness.

Please, please, please make this.  You will not be disappointed.  Or if you are…you probably did something wrong – not that there’s a whole lot that could do wrong with this – it’s also super easy to make!

I’m going to be spending my week enjoying the glorious sunshine despite the icy temperatures!

Enjoy your week, whatever you do.