How to Eat Outside - the movie… and a recipe for dark chocolate & marmalade bread & butter pudding

My next book, How to Eat Outside is published on 18th June. To celebrate its publication I made a little film about the idea behind the book. It also contains a recipe for a dark chocolate and marmalade bread and butter pudding, cooked in a dutch oven over a fire.

Here's the movie - shot and directed by Rob Wicks of Eat Pictures - a master food film maker and all round good egg.

And here's the recipe:

Bread and butter pudding with marmalade and chocolate

The idea for this pudding was conceived at the end of a week of camping when we were left with a collection of slightly sad looking leftover bits of this and that; a stale (and rather squashed) brioche loaf, half a jar of marmalade and two-thirds of a bar of dark chocolate, not to mention some just on-the-turn milk. All in need of a good home, and what a home it turned out to be! 

The beauty of brioche (croissants would be equally good too) is that they are butter-rich so you don’t need to add any extra butter. For extra richness, substitute some of the milk for a splash of cream (single or double), if you have some handy. Just as with the crumble, a foiled-lined springform cake tin placed inside a Dutch oven is the best way to cook this recipe. 

Serves 6

1 brioche loaf (about 400g), torn into bite-size pieces

About ½ a jar of marmalade 

About 70g dark chocolate, broken into bits

2–3 tbsp sugar (any sort is fine)

500ml milk

4 eggs

Line a 23–25cm springform cake tin with a double layer of foil. Scatter about half of the brioche pieces into the base of the prepared tin. Dollop on teaspoonfuls of marmalade, using about half of what you have, then scatter over about half of the chocolate pieces. Sprinkle on about 1 tablespoon sugar. Repeat with the rest of the brioche, marmalade, chocolate and sugar. 

In a bowl, lightly whisk together the milk and eggs, then pour evenly into the tin over the brioche layers. Place the tin inside the Dutch oven, cover with the lid and hang the oven over your fire, not too close to the coals otherwise the bottom will burn. Use tongs to put 8–10 hot coals on the lid to cook the pudding from the top as well. Cook for around 25–30 minutes until the custard has set and the top is crisp. Serve whilst piping hot. 

Easy peasy lemon curd

At last a new recipe post from me. I am on the home straight now with writing A Good Egg, the book that this blog has turned into, and have been a little focussed to say the least. A few days ago I received the next instalment of photos from the super talented photographer Jason Ingram and it prompted me to finally post something. And here it is, lemon curd. Possibly the easiest, and nicest, preserve ever invented?

You won’t believe how straightforward lemon curd is to make, just fling it all in a pan and warm it gently over a low heat until it thickens then pour into clean jars. Compared to the shop brought stuff, the taste is phenomenal and, like me, you’ll be cursing yourself you haven’t done it before. Provided you store it in sterilized jars and in the fridge it will last for several weeks. But to be honest I doubt it’ll be there for that long.

makes 3 jars

4 eggs

4 large lemons, juice & finely grated zest

370g caster sugar

250g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes

1 tbsp cornflour

Begin by sterilizing 3 standard sized jam jars. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Wash both the jars and the lids in warm soapy water and rinse well. Shake off the excess water and stand in a baking tray. Slide into the oven and leave until they are completely dry.

Whilst the jars are sterilizing, add all the ingredients together in a heavy based saucepan. Set over a low heat and warm, whisking gently but pretty much continuously until it thickens. This should take around 10-15 minutes, give or take a minute here and there depending on the depth of your saucepan. You are looking for a consistency like natural yogurt. The lemon curd will thicken a little further on cooling.

Carefully pour the hot lemon curd into the clean hot jars and screw the lid on tightly. Once cold store in the fridge.

Seville orange mousse & Almond thins

Every year I welcome the arrival of the knobbly thick skinned Seville oranges into the greengrocers. Some years I get around to making marmalade and some years frankly life feels just a bit too busy. But I still gain a small pleasure from just seeing them, for me they are a true mark of the time of year, a clear signal that January will soon be February as we inch slowly forward towards spring.

I have often thought it a shame that Seville’s were reserved almost exclusively for marmalade. Very bitter and inedible raw they do need to be cooked and sweetened considerably to make them palatable. This mousse was a true experiment, I knew I wanted to harness their unique taste, as I felt it could offer something different and more complex than a standard orange. In the end I added the freshly grated zest of two clementines to the mousse, they added a floral citrus note that the Seville's lacked. The result was a creamy, sharp and interesting flavoured pud that was a success even with the kids. 

The almond thins are a real doddle to make as you bake them flat in a large tray then cut them up after cooking. No faffing around with rolling and cutters. What could be easier? 

for the mousse:

2 Seville oranges, each cut into six wedges

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

300ml double cream

3 leaves gelatine 

for the almond thins:

250g butter, softened 

200g golden caster sugar

1 egg

1tsp vanilla extract

250g plain flour

200g flaked almonds

Start the mousse by adding the orange wedges to a pan along with 500ml cold water. Bring to the boil and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes, prodding with a wooden spoon from time to time to release the juice from the flesh and the oils from the skin. Strain into a measuring jug, it should yield approximately 150 ml of orange juice, top up with a little cold water if it is slightly under. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Lay the sheets of gelatine to a shallow bowl of cold water and leave to soak for 5 minutes. Remove the sheets, squeezing out the excess water before stirring through the orange juice, mixing until they dissolve. 

Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl and stir through the sugar. Set the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, taking care the bowl does not come into contact with the water. Using an electric whisk beat together the egg and sugar until it thickens and turns a pale yellow.  Turn off the whisk and lift it a little out of the bowl - if you trail it slightly above the mixture it should leave a thin ribbon in its wake. You can use a balloon whisk rather than an electric one but it will take a fair bit of whisking to get to this ‘ribbon stage’. Pour in the double cream, orange juice and clementine zest continue to whisk for a few moments until it is well combined. Transfer to a large serving bowl, or individual glasses if you fancy, and leave to set in the fridge. This will take 2-3 hours in a large bowl, or an hour or so in small glasses.

To make the biscuits, preheat the oven to 170°C. Beat the softened butter together with the sugar in a food mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the egg, flour, vanilla extract and beat again until a smooth paste is formed. 

Line 2 baking sheets with non-stick baking parchment and scoop half the mixture onto the centre of each sheet. Use a spatula and spread the mix outwards in a thin layer until it completely covers the sheet. Sprinkle over the almonds evenly. Bake for about 15 minutes until they are a pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and using a sharp knife cut into squares. Leave to cool in the tin. Stored in an airtight tin, layered with greaseproof paper, they will keep for several days.

Date, orange & pistachio bread & butter pudding

After a ridiculously mild autumn, winter seems to have hit with a sudden vengeance and as usual the weather is having a huge affect on what I want to eat. Proper puddings seem to be the order of the day, no longer satisfied with a yogurt or piece of fruit, there seems to be a demand by my body for something richer and more substantial. Today’s bitterly chilly wind and a lingering head cold meant I wanted to go nowhere further than a quick dash to school and back. So pudding had to be constructed from what we already had. For me one of the most pleasurable things about cooking are a peek in the fridge, a rummage through the cupboards followed by a good hard think about the possibilities. Borne, I guess, from sense of frugality and thrift, there is simply nothing nicer than creating something delicious from nothing. No visits to the shop, no hunting for speciality ingredients, but something created from leftovers and bits and bobs. This bread and butter pudding was perhaps one of my best ever ‘bits & bobs’ dishes. I had none of the more usual raisins or currants but I did have some dried dates that were right up against there best before date. I had an orange, half a pot of cream, and of course I had eggs. And a rummage in the booze cupboard yielded a joyful but near empty bottle of Cointreau left over from a cocktail party many moons ago. Only two tablespoons, but enough to lift it from the gorgeous to the completely sublime. Oh yes, I was really very pleased with this…...

100g dried dates, roughly chopped

1 large orange, zest & juice 

250ml milk

150ml double cream

3 eggs

2 tbsp orange liqueur, such as Cointreau (optional) 

9 slices good quality white bread, crusts trimmed - slightly stale is best (weighing about 250g after crusts removed) 

30-40g butter, plus a little extra for greasing the dish

100g shell on pistachios, yielding about 50g nuts, roughly chopped

2-3tbsp demerara sugar

In a small saucepan, simmer the dates in the orange juice for a couple of minutes then turn off and leave to infuse for a few minutes whilst you make the custard.

Mix together the orange zest with the milk, cream, eggs and liqueur if you are using it. Stir through the dates and orange juice.

Generously butter the bread, cut into wedges or triangles depending on the shape of your loaf and arrange half of it in a lightly greased baking dish. I used thin slices from a large flat, round ‘boule’ type bread. It had plenty of lovely air holes which made wonderful pockets for the custard to puddle in.  Pour over half the custard, then top with the remaining bread, followed by the rest of the custard. Leave to soak together for around 30 minutes before cooking.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.     

When you are ready to cook it, sprinkle the pistachios and demerara sugar evenly over the surface. Bake for around 30-35 mins until the custard has just set, but still has a slight wobble to it, and the surface is crisp and golden.

Serve warm from the oven. I found it rich enough to eat on its own but you may want to offer a little extra cream alongside.