chocolate and raspberry croissant pudding

After weeks of collecting leftover plain and almond croissants, I raided the freeze and discovered to my astonishment sixteen whole croissants! Funny how things accumulate. So I set about the task of collecting all my ingredients to make the recipe spotted in 'Green & Black's Organic Ultimate Chocolate Recipes The New Collection'. Easy peasy.


CHOCOLATE AND RASPBERRY CROISSANT PUDDING
Serves 6-8
1 tbsp unsalted butter
100g dark (70% cocoa solids) chocolate, chopped into rough chunks, plus 1 tbsp, finely grated
4 croissants
100g fresh or frozen raspberries
600ml whipping cream
100g milk chocolate chopped
3 free-range medium eggs, beaten
Preheat oven to 180C.
Grease a 2 litre, ovenproof dish with the unsalted butter and dust with grated dark chocolate.
Tear the croissants into chunks and place in the ovenproof dish.  Sprinkle over the raspberries and chunks of the dark chocolate.  Set the dish aside while you prepare the custard mixture.
In a small saucepan bring the cream up to boiling point.  Remove from the heat and gently stir in the milk chocolate until melted.
Add the eggs and quickly mix in until well combined.  Pour the mixture over the croissants and raspberries. Push the croissants down into the custard so that they soak up a little of the liquid.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the custard is just set.
Serve hot from the oven with ice cream. In my case, I served cold the next day as a cake and got mixed reviews from people - strangely moreish, interesting bread and butter pudding twist, can clearly taste the croissants but the raspberry and chocolate hit makes it! And plainly, alright.  I think you might need to be a fan in general of bread puddings for this richly decadent version.


If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
Alice in Wonderland