I had a lot of burger buns leftover one day, and decided to experiment using those for bread and butter pudding. I braced myself for utter failure but hey, it works! The pudding is beautifully soft with gently crisp edges.
It was not the only thing that worked. I also tested photographing this (it was night time) using a small mirror to reflect and bounce the light from the pop-up flash. The effect is surprisingly nice, warm, and not harsh. A Lightscoop uses the same concept and would be a more elegant solution, but it's not so readily available here. Well, I thought I would not need an expensive external flash unit for a while. Haha. That was 10 days ago. I'll continue this later.
Anyway, back to the burger bun and butter pudding. I'm jotting down here for my own reference the recipe, which is adapted from this one.
INGREDIENTS
* 1/3 cup caster sugar
* 4 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
* a handful of raisins (you can use whatever dried fruit you like)
* 3 tablespoons rum (I used Myer's dark)
* 2 cups milk (go full cream; you deserve it!)
* 4 burger buns, halved
* enough butter to spread on buns and to grease baking dish
METHOD
1. Soak raisins in rum for a few hours, until they're plump.
2. Generously butter the burger bun halves, and grease the baking dish.
3. Place sugar and eggs in a bowl. Beat with a fork until pale. Add vanilla, raisins, rum and milk. Beat until well combined.
4. Arrange bread in dish, with slices overlapping each other - I put the buttered side up. Pour egg mixture over bread. Stand for 20 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 170°C. Place pudding on a baking tray or rack. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until set.
Optional extras:
You can dust with icing sugar and serve with ice-cream and strawberries. Or serve with vanilla cream. I'm not fussy so I just poured more cold milk onto it.
wow wow wow wow! hahaha I can't stop wow-ing, burger bun for bread and butter pudding? that's an damn ingenious idea! :D
ReplyDeleteBeautiful shots! I would've never guessed they were taken at night :) Thanks for dropping by my blog!
ReplyDeletehahaha LIC: I'm glad you're wowed! have your burger buns for dessert too!
ReplyDeleteOvenhaven: thank you! your blog rocks!
Beautiful!!!
ReplyDelete:-)... I have known people who used croissant instead of white bread. Next time can try white bread buttered with Kaya... seriously.
ReplyDeleteThanks, both! Wow, kaya bread and butter pudding? That's an idea!
ReplyDeleteHi Catherine, I came across this while looking for "bread and butter pudding" and I must say your photography really did it justice. The colours are so warm and exuberant. Very very delightful indeed. Any changes to your food photography set up since? Really love to know how you bounce your flash and the lens you use :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliments! Yes, bouncing the light off the pop-up flash really does work. But of course, a lot also depends on the surrounding colours that the light bounces off. If you're in a dark, blue-toned area, you may get cooler colours in the final photo.
ReplyDeleteI've since then gotten an external flash unit (impulse buy while looking for a Lightscoop)...but am still pretty much using a standard kit lens 28-80mm.