to your Favourites...
This is the ultimate pudding for using up any stale bread and that glut of fruit at the end of summer. It is nice and rich and packed with flavour, it is also quite simple to make.
- 1kg “forest fruits” - cherries, raspberries, blackcurrants, blackberries
- 900g caster sugar
- 150ml crème de casis or pimms
- 400g brioche or any other bread
Preparation Time: 40 minutes (+12 hours setting in the fridge)
Cooking Time: n/a
Serves: 8 - 10
- Place the fruit and sugar into a heavy based sauce pan and over a medium heat, stir the mixture carefully until the sugar has dissolved.
- Bring the fruit and sugar up to the boil, turn off the heat and leave the fruit to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- Strain the fruit through a sieve over a bowl to catch the juices. Keep both the fruit and the juice.
- Grease the inside of a large pudding basin and line it with cling film/plastic wrap so it drapes down the sides of the bowl.
- Slice the brioche/bread into roughly 1cm slices unless it has been done so already. Dip a slice into the fruit juices and place it into the bottom of the basin.
- Dip another slice into the fruit juice and place this against the side of the basin. Repeat this with other slices until the basin is lined. Press the overlapping edges together to seal them.
- When you have finished building the walls of the pudding, spoon about a third of the fruit into the basin to start the internal layering.
- Place 2 or 3 slices of brioche/bread dipped in the fruit juices on top of the fruit. Put the rest of the fruit on top of that.
- Dip the remaining brioche/bread in the fruit juices and lay them on top of the fruit mixture, making sure to plug any gaps.
- Bring the cling film/plastic wrap up and over the pudding so it is encased, then wrap more over the top of the pudding.
- Weigh down the pudding with something heavy like a plate with a gold bar on it so that the pudding compresses, then put it into the fridge for about 12 hours.
- Unwrap the pudding and carefully turn it out onto a plate.
- Slice and serve. We served it simply with a good spoonful of Crème fraîche.
- You can use any berries you like, ideally they should be in season and fresh for the pudding to be at its best, but frozen berries will also work well.
- If there is any juice left over from the fruit, you can keep it and use it as a sauce, either for the pudding or as a fruit coulis. Try pouring some over ice cream.
We used brioche because it has a softer crumb compared to normal bread which can sometimes be a bit tough or rubbery, especially the mass produced industrial sliced bread one can buy.