“It’s sort of like making marmalade in that there’s a moment when, if you turn off the cooker it’s going to be too runny. And there’s another moment when, if you’ve gone too long, it’s going to be very hard. Catching the exact right moment is just a matter of feel”
Margaret Atwood, On Writers and Writing
I agree with Margaret Atwood about writing… and I do a lot of it, both day job and night job. So I am not also going to make marmalade, the thing to do is to buy it. Victoria Cranfield’s Improper Marmalade is a good place to start, but most homemade varieties on sale at fêtes are good too. This pudding can be done in a trice.
Talking of home made marmalade, go to The Battle of the Marmalashes and a hearty hot chocolate and marmalade fondant.
This pud forms part of a suggested menu with:
The starter: Chamonix winter salad with beetroot crisps
The main course: pomegranate venison with celeriac dauphinois
Whiskied Marmalade Brioche
Serves – 4
Ingredients
- 150g packet dried apple slices
- ½ cup/100g nice plump sultanas
- 1 x cinnamon stick
- ½ cup/120ml whisky (Famous Grouse would do)
- 1 cup/250ml full milk
- 300ml pot/1¼ cups double cream
- ½ tsp vanilla bean paste
- 4 eggs
- pinch salt
- about a fifth of a pack of butter – it’s to spread on the brioche
- ½ cup/110g golden caster sugar
- 8 brioche rolls (about 280g), or about two thirds of a loaf
- 10 tbsp marmalade – for extra interest use a suitable Improper Marmalade
- Greek yoghurt (200g tub), vanilla ice cream, or crème fraîche to serve with it
Instructions
- Pour the whisky and the cinnamon stick into a medium sized saucepan and heat.
- Cut the apple slices up small – to about twice the size of the sultanas.
- Add the apple and sultanas to the whisky, then leave to cool, overnight if possible.
- Mix cream, milk, salt and vanilla paste together in a medium saucepan.
- Beat the sugar and eggs together with the cappuccino whisk.
- Heat the oven to 180°C, or use the bottom right oven if you have an Aga.
- Mix the egg mixture into the milk mixture stirring with a wooden spoon all the time… you’re making a kind of custard.. you don’t want it to go lumpy.
- Slightly warm the marmalade by putting on a plate and blasting for about 10 seconds in the microwave, then mash with a fork.
- Slice the brioche, and spread with butter and marmalade.
use a lowish, ovenproof dish, start with a layer of half the brioche, then a layer of fruit, then again brioche, then the rest of the fruit. - Pour over the custard (if it looks lumpy whisk with cappuccino whisk, or sieve it) and leave it for a bit
- Boil the kettle, put the dish in a roasting tin and fill the roasting tin with the boiling water to about halfway up the dish.
- Bake for about 40 minutes, it should be set on top, and a lovely golden colour
- Serve with the Greek yoghurt.
