marmalade/mincemeat bread and butter pudding

[peanuts]

I have several recipes for interesting variations of bread and butter puddings.   The one I made yesterday, which is eaten cold, was for a French birthday celebration in our village. It is a mixture of several recipes, and  was a great success.  So I  will tell you exactly what I did. And if someone can tell me how to post a photo with a posting, I will add a photo of it!  At the moment I've failed to find out how to do it.
The quantity I made was enough for 12-18 people, depending on how big a meal you have already eaten. As this was a  typical French meal, the 12 of us only ate  2/3 of it, as we still had the chocolate beetroot fudge birthday cake to come!
I used a china baking dish,  29x24x6cm.
Ideally it needs to be made the day before and chilled.

Ingredients:
75g raisins
80ml brandy
450 milk (I used skimmed, although recipe says fullfat)
450  double cream
1 vanilla pod, although you could use good quality vanilla essence instead.
4 eggs
100g caster sugar
Four or five fresh apricots, cut in pieces. These are optional! You could alternatively use  raspberries, or any other fruit you fancy to add interest.
Enough softened butter to butter the slices of bread
Sliced bread - I used almost a whole loaf of good quality sliced brioche, which is soft and slightly sweet.  If you can't find that, then use good quality bread, not blotting paper!  I didn't cut off the crusts, and it doesn't need to be old either.  fresh and soft is good.
To make the sandwiches, either use a whole jar of mincemeat, preferably home-made as it is far less sweet than shop-made. Or use Seville marmalade, again home-made if poss.  Be generous with the fillings! For today's version, I used  half of each, and then alternated the half sandwiches when I laid them in the dish!  It worked very well that way, as the flavours intermingled.
If you have lemon or orange zest  to spare,  then you could add some of this too. I always keep some frozen in a little pot in the freezer.

Method:
If you are organised, you soak the raisins in brandy overnight.  But of course I didn't remember that bit!  Useful tip - it works just as well if you heat them in the microwave in the brandy, for  a minute or so, until hot, and leave them a few minutes to soak. 
Grease the dish really well with butter.
Heat the milk and cream and split vanilla pod.  Turn off when it reaches boiling, and leave to infuse while you make the sandwiches as above. Cut sandwiches in half and lay them in the dish tightly, filling up all the space. Sprinkle the soaked raisins over, tuck the pieces of apricot in between the sandwiches. Pour brandy over all the sandwiches.
Whisk the eggs and sugar, and vanilla essence if you haven't used a vanilla pod. Add the milk and cream mixture (having removed the vanilla pod, but you can leave the seeds in), whisking well.  Pour this gently over the sandwiches.  I can just fit all this in with my sized dish. It can be quite full as it doesn't really rise that much. Leave to soak for 30 minutes, gently pushing down the sandwiches from time to time.
Lastly sprinkle it all with some demerara sugar.

Ideally, this should be cooked in a bain marie, putting the dish in a larger tin, and  pouring water round it until it comes about half way up.  (This stops it from cooking too 'fiercely').  Luckily I have a very large roasting tin, and it just fits in if I first of all put a swiss-roll tin in upside down in the roasting tin, for the dish to sit on. Another solution would be to make it in two smaller dishes, or course.  Or if you have more people, then double the recipe and make two lots anyway!
Bake in oven temperature 160ºC/gas 3 for about 45 minutes.  It only needs to be just set in the middle, as it will go on cooking a little, and it needs to stay moist.
Chill overnight. The next day you could sprinkle a little caster sugar over and  blowtorch it to caramelise the sugar - not necessary, but it looks even nicer!
Bon appetit!
Peanuts

[peanuts]

[Yorkshire Lass]

Peanuts
Thank you for this. It sounds delicious. I've got visitors at the weekend so will give it a go.
Many thanks

YL
Anne

[peanuts]

Anne
Did you make the bread and butter pud? How did it turn out?