Yum yum! Hot Cross Buns!!

Today is Good Friday, a part of our Easter Holiday. So I admit, I'm not religious, wasn't brought up with religion and sorry if I offend, but it doesn't particularly interest me. So I'm not overly sure of the whole story, but it is about Jesus being crucified and resurrected.

Hot Cross Buns at Easter, to me, is like Christmas Pudding at Christmas time. Something you wait all year for, to scoff until you feel sick and then never want to touch again, until next year.

Last weekend, I decided to have a go at making my own for the first time ever. It was fun. I felt like I did something special and productive, but sadly the recipe wasn't quite perfect, it was missing a little flavour, even if the house did smell like heaven at the time. On top of that, silly me has now lost the recipe, so I can't post it, with what I think would be good modifications. I will hunt it down and try it again though.

Anyways, after we all scoffed 2 each, hot, dripping with butter (calories, they are just a fictional creature made up to scare us I'm sure) we still had a few left. So what else do you do with left over Hot Cross Buns that were going stale by the hour. You make Bread and Butter Pudding!

I'm a bit of a 'a bit of this, and a bit of that' when it comes to my B&B pud, but here's my rough version.

Hot Cross Bun Pudding Possumchops Style

3 to 4 x hot cross buns
1 x 300ml carton of cream (thickened or puring, even light is fine)
3 x eggs (free range would be perfect)
A splash of milk (maybe 1/4 cup)
A table spoon or 2 of golden syrup
2 or so tablespoons of raw sugar
A teaspoon or 2 of ground cinnamon
A dash of vanilla
And a good sprinkle of ground nutmeg, although I wouldn't be upset if you used freshly grated .

Ok, so there's no butter, but if you like you could butter your buns.

Anyways, I cut off the crust and cut the buns onto cubes, maybe 1/2 inch square or so, it doesn't have to be perfect. Put those into a medium sized baking dish ( I used a ceramic dish about 17x23cms) that has been lightly greased. You can make it deeper if you like, there are no hard and fast rules here.

In a bowl whisk all the other ingredients except the nutmeg until very well combined. Pour over the buns and do the hokey pokey (I just heard that song on Playschool in the background) so all the bread is nice and soppy. Sprinkle the top with a hearty dose of nutmeg and bake in an oven at around 170deg celcius for about 30 - 45 minutes (You want it to be set in the middle and golden on top).

Now to just increase the ass-widening ability of this dessert I made a nasty, cheats ice cream of 300mls of thickened cream (don't use light this time, you want it to whip up) with half a can of condensed milk. Beat these together with beaters until light and fluffy and then freeze for a few hours. Make sure you don't share the beaters, bowl or spatula with the kids, its too damned tasty to give away to people who don't appreciate sweet creamy treasures.

Serve your pud warm with a nice scoop ice cream. It actually reminded me of Chrissy Pud, with the fruits and the spices of the buns. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and had to work my butt off at the gym this week so as not to gain any weight (shock horror I actually lost a kilo! Woohoo!).

Again, no piccy sorry. Grumbles thinks I'm weird taking photos of food. He doesn't get this blogging thing at all.