Panettone Pudding |Easy Post-Christmas Dessert Recipe
As the Christmas season draws to a close with the feast of Epiphany, let me show you another way of making use of any leftover Panettone. While the Panettone French Toast was a quick and easy recipe for a lazy weekend brunch, let’s now look into elevating the humble bread and butter pudding, into a Panettone Pudding.
By doing this, we elevate this leftover dessert bread into a rich dessert pudding to be enjoyed with the family as we ease ourselves out of the holiday season. This is an easy recipe but will need a little more effort and time than the Panettone French Toast. The basic recipe is exactly that of a bread and butter pudding with bread slices drenched in some custard and then layered with filler ingredients and baked.
How to make the Panettone Pudding:
Firstly, ensure the Panettone is slightly stale and dry. A stale, dry Panettone will soak up the custard more effectively than a fresh Panettone. Next, find a suitable mould to build your pudding in. I used a Tart-tin to make this pudding.
Grease the mould with butter and then dust it with demerara sugar. This gives a coarse texture to the sides of the pudding. Next, cut off the crust of the panettone into uniform slices and layer the base and sides of the mould, pressing down the slices to form a snug fit, covering all the gaps and forming a pastry-shell. Break the remaining panettone into bite sized pieces.
Set, this aside and get going with making the custard. Simmer some milk, cream, vanilla and butter in a saucepan while parallelly whisking the eggs and sugar. For a traditional bread & butter pudding, I’d have buttered the bread slices before layering them in the pan but it is difficult to do on a shredded panettone. Hence, added the butter into the milk mixture. Drizzle a portion of the simmering milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisking continuously and gradually add in the remaining milk mixture, whisking all the time until well combined, to form the custard.
I wanted to spike up this pudding with some alcohol. Since the Panettone is an Italian dish, I decided to go for Amaretto. Not just any amaretto, but “Amaretto di Saronno” (Amaretto from Saronno), which was rebranded in 2001 as “Disaronno Originale“
A portion of this custard is then poured onto the base of the pastry shell and allowed to soak, while the sides are brushed with the custard. The panettone pieces are then drenched in the remaining custard and allowed to soak up all the custard.
We need to create a range of flavours and textures through the pudding. I did this with the addition of blueberries, some dark chocolate and some orange marmalade and peel. Roughly chop the chocolate into chunks or varying sizes, thus adding to the texture of the dish. We could go with just the orange marmalade or the peel, but by adding both we provide the taste of orange in two different textures. You do not need to stick to the above mentioned filler ingredients. You can absolutely experiment with your own.
Layer the pastry shell randomly with the filler ingredients and cover it with the soaked panettone. Alternate the layering until all the ingredients are used up. Drizzle any leftover custard on top and finish with the remaining demerara sugar. Bake in a preheated oven for about 30 mins, until the pudding is set.
Serving the Panettone Pudding:
Take the pudding out of the oven and allow to rest for 10-15 mins. Slice it up and serve it as it is or you can pair it with a scoop of ice-cream or some whipped cream or even drench it in some custard. You can’t go wrong with any of these. Also, if you so desire, you can refrigerate the pudding and serve it cold. Enjoy!
Panettone Pudding
Equipment
- Oven
- 28 cm Tart tin (with removable base)
- Silicone brush
- Saucepan
- Mixing bowl
- Balloon whisk
Ingredients
- 150 gms Butter (unsalted), divided
- 50 gms Demerara Sugar (powdered)
- 800 gms Panettone, slightly stale
- 300 ml Full fat milk
- 300 ml Fresh Cream
- 2 tsp Vanilla
- 6 Eggs, medium sized
- 80 gms Sugar, granulated
- 75 ml Amaretto
- 120 gms Blueberries
- 100 gms Dark chocolate (74%) (roughly chopped)
- 50 gms Orange marmalade
- 50 gms Candied Orange Peel
Instructions
Prepping the Oven and Tart-tin:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C
- Grease the tart-tin lightly with some butter
- Dust the tart tin with the powdered demerara sugar. Collect the excess sugar in a bowl and save it for later
- Slice the crust off the Panettone and cut it into thin strips and use it to layer the base and sides of the tart-tin to form a pastry-shell
- Press down hard to form a snug fit between the slices and cover all the gaps
Making the Custard:
- Take the milk, cream, vanilla and the remaining butter in a saucepan and simmer until the butter has melted (about 6-7 mins)
- While this milk mixture is simmering, whisk the eggs and granulated sugar in a bowl until smooth and creamy
- Add about a quarter cup of the milk mixture to the whisked eggs and sugar and whisk it to form the custard base
- Then, while continuing to whisk constantly add the remaining milk mixture little by little until well combined
- Add the Italian liqueur and whisk
Building the Pudding
- Pour about a cup of the custard on the base of the pastry shell and leave it for a few minutes to soak
- Meanwhile, brush the sides of the pastry shell with some of the custard
- Break down the remaining Panettone into bite sized pieces and drench in the remaining custard until all the custard has been soaked up
- Layer the pastry shell randomly with blueberries, chocolate, marmalade and orange peel (see notes)
- Layer it with half the soaked panettone chunks and then repeat with another layer of the blueberries, chocolate, marmalade and orange peel and finally the remaining soaked panettone
- Drizzle any leftover custard on top, followed by the remaining demerara sugar
Baking the Pudding:
- Bake for about 25-30 mins or until the pudding is set
- Take it out of the oven, and allow to rest it for about 15 mins
Serving suggestions:
- Slice and enjoy it as it is or with some ice-cream/ whipped-cream/ custard (see notes)
Notes
- You can use filler-ingredients of your choice and also, break up the chocolate into random sized chunks. The idea is to create a a range of tastes and textures
- If you desire, you can refrigerate the pudding and serve it cold too