"Christmas pudding debacle leads to new dessert being created"

I hope a wonderful christmas day was had by all. We had a lovely time at home with family members dropping in throughout the day.

There had however been a temporary panic on my part when my required ingredients for my christmas day dessert, a passionfruit trifle from a Nigella Lawson recipe, were unavailable. The best laid plans of mice and men...

So, a bit of creative thought on christmas eve was required. In the kitchen was the remains of a pannatone going a bit stale, and in the drinks cabinet (sideboard!) was a bottle of apricot brandy that I have never known what to do with.

I sliced the pannatone into triangles and laid the pieces in a deep dish and poured about a quarter of the bottle of apricot brandy over, squashed it all down a bit with a spatula, covered in cling film and put it in the fridge over night.

On christmas morning I took the dish out of the fridge, took off the cling film and poured another quarter bottle of the brandy over. Returned it all to the fridge until about an hour before dinner was due to be ready.

I then made a basic custard (about a pint)- not to thick (as it thickens when cooked) - and poured this over the pannatone/brandy mixture. I then sprinkled dark muscavado sugar all over the top. The oven was already on at 200 degrees (not fan assisted) so I popped the dish in at this temperature and left it cooking for about an hour. When the main course was served I switched the oven off but left the dish in the oven with foil over the top to stop it drying out.



I then served it warm with very thick double cream. And it was wonderful. Not too heavy as pannatone is quite light and the apricot flavour works like a dream.



(The pannatone was actually from the beginning of the year and had been wrapped in greaseproof paper and was still relatively fresh, but it does need to be drying out to work properly, as it would go quite sloppy with very fresh pannatone. Stale bread with sultanas and candied peel added would also work well)

Hope you like it.

for now
Ruby xxx