Panettone is an Italian Christmas staple, an enriched bread laced with delicious dried fruit and a little rum. There is only one way to improve on this king of breads, and that is to transform it into a luxurious bread and butter pudding. Want to take it to another level as a Christmas dessert? Butter your panettone with ultra-festive brandy butter!

I serve this with double cream and some clementine spiked chocolate ganache – because if you can’t indulge at Christmas time, when can you?!

Ingredients:

– 30g butter
– 50g Brandy Butter
– 750g panettone, sliced thickly
– 6 eggs
– 500ml whole milk
– 100ml double cream
– 50g Demerara sugar
– 50g light brown sugar

Chocolate Clementine Sauce
– 200g chocolate
– 300ml cream
– zest of 3-4 clementines
– 1 vanilla pod/ 1 tsp extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Chop chocolate and heat cream, pour cream over chocolate, leave to sit, unstirred, to make the sauce.
3. Butter the baking dish and spread Brandy Butter on panettone slices.
4. Place slices in dish.
5. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and add cream, Brown sugar, milk and vanilla.
6. Pour over the panettone and allow to soak, sprinkle over Demerara sugar.
7. Place in a large roasting tray and half fill this with boiling water – place in the oven.
8. Remove from the oven.
9. Stir chocolate and cream to make a thick glossy ganache and add zest and some juice of clementine.
10. Place in bowls with a drizzle of chocolate sauce and some cream to serve.

Growing up with the name Darina, I was constantly asked if I could cook like my namesake. With that(and greed) as the ultimate motivator, I realised that baked goods make excellent bribes and an obsession was born! With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in law I undertook a PhD, but a preference for cookbooks to textbooks persisted. As a (self-confessed!) demon in the kitchen, I am the only person to have contested both Masterchef and the Great Irish Bake off, fuelling my desire to focus on food in a serious way. Working with TheTaste allows me to satisfy this craving and marries my food fascination with my love of writing and ranting.