Custard For Pain Au Chocolat Pudding

Our answer

Nigella's Pain Au Chocolate Pudding (from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) is a bread and butter style pudding that is made using stale pain au chocolat instead of bread. The recipe does have a total of 1 litre (4 cups) of milk and cream and contains 1 egg plus 4 yolks, which should be enough to give a softly set custard surrounding the slices of pain au chocolat. The pain au chocolate should be medium to large size and also should be stale and not fresh, as the stale pastries will absorb more liquid without turning mushy. Leftover pain au chocolate are best and should be at least a day old.

If the custard has separated it is likely that the mixture became too hot. When mixing the custard don't bring the milk and cream quite up to boiling point, or if it is boiling then let it cool slightly before pouring it over the eggs. The oven temperature of 160c/325F is quite low but if you have a fan oven then you will need to reduce the temperature following the instructions in your oven handbook and for fan ovens the cooking time may still be shorter. The custard should be softly set, with still a little wobble in the centre. You may like to try Nigella's Caramel Croissant Pudding which uses leftover stale croissants.