Hammer Smashed Pudding

The blob you can see to your right is the classic English bread and butter pudding!

This is the first time I've made the classic bread and butter pudding so I was glad to see that it turned out OK. Instead of following one recipe verbatim I got ideas from seeing how other people had done it. Some people use poncey expensive bread like brioche but I don't see the point. This is a basic tr00 version. I opted to use raspberry jam with this because it's absolutely gorgeous when it's hot, but feel free to use other types of jam and marmalade - whatever you like, really. Like many of the best things, it's brilliantly simple.

Ingredients:

• About two thirds of a loaf of sliced white bread
  
• A jar of raspberry jam (use as much of it as you like)
• Butter for the bread slices
• A handful of sultanas
• 600ml milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  
• 2 tbsps soft brown sugar

Method:

1. Turn the oven on at 180 degrees.
   
2. Deliberately let your bread go stale as it will soak up more awesomeness that way, then cut the crusts off and cut them into triangles. Spread some butter and raspberry jam on each slice and arrange them standing up diagonally in a baking tin (such as the pyrex one in the picture), then scatter some sultanas on top. N.B: if, for some reason, you don't have loads of stale bread hanging around, you can bake the bread slices, covered with foil, in the oven for a minute or two so that they dry out. No longer than that, though.
   
3. Make the custard. Bring some milk to the boil and then reduce it to a very gentle simmer - if you're using an electric hob, take it off the heat completely as it's best to err on the side of not making the custard curdle. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar and vanilla extract and mix it into the milk mixture. Keep stirring for a few minutes until it's thickened, then pour the whole lot over the pudding.
4. Bake the whole thing in the oven for about 35 minutes until the peaks have gone golden brown. Serve hot with blobs of vanilla ice cream!