Panettone Pudding

It’s a sure sign that Christmas is coming when the panettone start filling the stores.  Once upon a time you could only get them at specialty Italian grocers, but now they’ve gone mainstream, appearing in all supermarkets.   Each year new varieties appear – today at the deli I saw one with a pear and chocolate centre, one with a Strega centre, and one with a “Verona” almond crust.   I’m a bit of a traditionalist though, opting for the standard fruit or a pandoro.  Most of the time I eat it as is, but every now and again I like to do something a bit different – see a few of my ideas here.

Another nice idea if summer goes rogue and it’s a cool night, is this very easy panettone pudding.

Ingredients
1 750g panettone
3 eggs
600ml light thickened cream
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
20ml brandy
40g unsalted butter
Extra butter, for greasing
1/3 cup flaked almonds
Icing sugar, for dusting
Vanilla ice cream to serve

Making it
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees fan forced

Grease a baking dish, then tear the panettone with your hands into medium size pieces and put into the dish.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs, cream, extracts and brandy until well combined. Pour over the panettone and allow to sit for a few minutes. Cut the butter into small pieces and dot the panettone with it. Place in the oven for about 40 minutes until it becomes golden.

Meanwhile, lightly toast the flaked almonds in a pan then set aside. (You could also sprinkle the almonds through uncooked beforehand, and bake rather than adding afterwards).

Remove the pudding from the oven, dust with icing sugar and sprinkle with the almonds. Serve as is or with vanilla ice cream.

There’s a lot of potential variations in this – you could add mixed berries in for baking, or other nuts such as pistachio for texture.

Buon natale!

 

Caramel apple pudding

I was flipping through the folder of recipes I have collected from newspapers and magazines and came across this one, which I had not made for years.  On a cool Winter’s day, I thought it looked like the ideal dessert.  Hailing from a 2005 issue of Delicious, this was before the days of the I Quit Sugar movement – Sarah Wilson would have a heart attack.  I did reduce the sugar quantity from the original, but just a little. Serves 6-8.

Ingredients
5 large golden delicious or Granny Smith apples (or 6-7 small), peeled, cored, sliced 1cm thick
250g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
200g caster sugar
200ml milk
150g unsalted butter, melted
2 eggs
200g light brown sugar
125ml golden syrup
Icing sugar for dusting
Cream or vanilla ice cream, to serve

Making it
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan forced. Place apples in the dish to form an even layer.

2. In a bowl of your electric mixer place flour, baking powder, caster sugar, milk, butter and egg, then beat until pale. Spread mixture over the apples.

3. Place brown sugar, golden syrup and 200ml water in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves, then bring to the boil without stirring. Remove from heat and pour over the pudding batter, then bake for 35 minutes or until the top is golden and the batter is set.

4. Dust with icing sugar and serve with cream or ice cream