Food From Fiction: Penny's Passion Pudding (Bread Pudding)

 Not long ago I picked a book in the charity shop called Sweet Nothings by Sheila Norton. It wasn't a great read - a bit predictable, and I think aimed at an older generation than myself. It's about a woman called Penny who is frustrated with her husband and fancies someone at work, and is tempted by an affair, and is also campaigning for a local bypass.

She gets interviewed on the radio about the bypass but is also asked how she manages to keep the passion her marriage alive after however many years, and mentions that her husband loves her bread pudding. She ends up a local celebrity with everyone wanting to know about "Penny's passion pudding".  There is a recipe at the back of the book for the bread pudding so I decided to give it a go.

The name made me want to add passion fruit as well, which is a bit different to a traditional bread pudding, but this recipe included dried apricots so I thought why not. I also bought a large tin of mango puree on a whim at the supermarket and decided that mango and passionfruit would be a nice fruity combination for a summery bread pudding.

So this is what I used, for I suppose what you would call Caroline's Passion Pudding.

8 slices stale bread
2 eggs
100ml milk
200g sultanas and/or raisins - equal quantities of each if you like
50g French glacé cherries
55g mixed peel
2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
2 passion fruit, scooped out
200g mango puree
Sprinkling of brown sugar

 Preheat oven to 175C.

Place the bread slices in a large shallow bowl. Beat the eggs with the milk and pour over the bread. Leave to soak in for ten minutes.

Grease a large oven proof dish and layer the bread with the other ingredients as equally as possible until you have used everything up. Sprinkle the top with brown sugar.

Bake in the oven for about an hour - 1 hour 15 mins. Serve warm.

 I'm sending my Passion Pudding with passion fruit, mango puree and mixed peel to Alphabakes, as the letter this month is P.