It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that when you live in France you have to find ways to use up leftover croissants and baguettes. It’s possible that after many years of life here you become adept at guessing exactly how many croissants each person might eat, but after four and a half years it is a skill we have not yet mastered. And so, we find ourselves often with a glut of croissants in the house. Tim does his best to work his way through them but there are only so many pastries that one man can put away. Their buttery, flakiness mercifully lends itself to both savoury and sweet dishes and I have created several that are very much beloved of our guests.
This one is a fancy version of a humble bread and butter pudding, made here with croissants and apricot jam. Chocolate lovers will no doubt thank you if you use pâte à tartiner (Nutella) in place of the jam – this is especially handy if you have left over pain au chocolat too. Or you could leave out the jam altogether and just scatter in some dried fruit. I make this both as one big dish, as I have here, or as individual puddings in ramekins for our B&B guests.
Ingredients
8 croissants
1 jar of apricot jam (I use may homemade jam which is lower in sugar than most shop brought jams – if your jam is very sweet you might want to adjust the sugar in the recipe to taste)
4 eggs
400ml cream
200ml whole milk
45g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
Demerara sugar, for sprinkling
Butter, for greasing
Method
Butter a baking dish that will fit your croissants snuggly or eight individual ramekins. Slice each croissant in half horizontally as you would a bread roll and open it out. Spread each croissant with a tablespoon of jam and then close up. Whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, sugar and vanilla until well combined.
If you’re making individual puddings cut each croissant into three or four pieces. Dunk each piece in the custard mixture before tucking into the ramekins – use one croissant per ramekin. Any leftover custard can be drizzled over the puddings as the croissants soak it up. For a large pudding just arrange your croissants in the prepared dish and pour the custard evenly over the top. Push the croissants down a little to encourage them to soak up the custard. Scatter some Demerara sugar on top. You can make these up to this point several hours in advance.
Pre-heat the oven to 180c/160c fan. Place the dish or ramekins in a deep oven tray and pour hot water (not boiling) into the tray until it comes about a third of the way up the sides of the dish. Bake for 25-30 mins for the ramekins and 30-40 mins of the large pudding or until it’s puffed, golden and the custard is set but still oozy. Remove from the oven tray and allow to sit for a little before serving. It’s best eaten warm but is also equally lovely cold the next day for breakfast.
