I haven’t done very well with food this Easter. I’ve eaten some very nice things, and been given many eggs by several lovely people, but I haven’t done much in the way of Easter-esque cooking, bar a batch of hot cross buns on Good Friday.

Bread and butter pudding is a favourite of mine, and I’m very proud of this version of the recipe. I didn’t use my homemade hot cross buns though (they were all toasted and slathered with enough butter to feed an army), but instead opted to buy a cheap supermarket packet – if you can find discounted ones approaching their best-before date they’ll actually work better, as well as saving you money.

Ingredients (serves 4):
– 3 hot cross buns
– 100g butter
– 1tsp ground cinnamon
– zest of 1 orange
– 50g sultanas
– 100ml double cream
– 150ml semi-skimmed milk
– 2 egg yolks
– 25g granulated sugar
– 1tbsp demerara sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease a large casserole/oven dish. Slice the hot cross buns (as you would to butter them), then cut each part in half.

2. Pour the cream and milk into a small saucepan, and put onto a low heat. You want to heat it enough so that it begins to steam, but avoid boiling!

3. Meanwhile, mix together the butter, cinnamon and orange zest, then thickly spread onto the hot cross bun pieces. Place about half of the pieces into your oven dish, then sprinkle over half the sultanas. Repeat with the rest of the bun pieces and sultanas.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the granulated sugar until pale and thick. By this point your milk/cream mixture should be ready, so slowly pour it into the egg bowl, whisking as you do so, to make a custard.

5. Pour the custard over the hot cross buns, then sprinkle over the demerara sugar. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the top is golden and the custard is baked.

Ps. Apologies for the sub-par photos this time – I meant to retake them but I’ve been ill for the last couple of days! I’ll update if I get time, but if not I can promise you some spectacular photos in next week’s post.