Thursday 19 April 2012

Matcha and Marzipan Bread Pudding

I hate wasting food.  My father's voice resonates in my head whenever I stand over the bin with a plate of leftovers. "There are kids starving on the streets, Maria."  And as always, he manages to make me shiver in guilt.  Thankfully somebody one day thought of the idea of a bread pudding.  It's genius.  Only recently did I discover the difference between a bread and butter pudding and a bread pudding, actually.  This is a bread pudding.   It's not a rich and horribly sweet dessert overloaded with butter and sugar.  It's an afternoon tea snack, a part of your breakfast, or just something to satisfy your sweet tooth anytime of the day.
You can get so creative with bread puddings.  I love matcha.  It makes me really homesick since I used to always have these delicious matcha lattes in the Starbucks in Beijing.  I write this with a look of unadulterated contempt on my face as it's pouring rain outside.  I don't know where my beautiful Scottish spring is.  I miss home, where, according to my dashboard weather forecast, is sunny and 16C.

But it's ok.  When the weather isn't ideal, we can make means with other things like good food.  Happy belly = happy mind.  First, imagine the taste of this if you will. You get the pronounced marzipan together with the mellow matcha notes, and then you get bursts of sharp citrus tang coming from the candied peel.   Imagine the texture -- first, the toasted bread and almond flakes provide the crunch, then a thick layer of soft and moist sponge.  Now, imagine eating this with a cup of warm tea or a glass of wine in your room, overlooking the gray showers outside your window.  It makes it better.

Ingredients
250g stale bread
1 1/2 tbsp matcha powder
300ml milk
1 egg
50g marzipan
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp mixed candied peel
1 tbsp almond slices

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C.
Tear the bread up into bite size pieces.
Whisk the milk, egg, sugar and matcha together and pour over the bread. Leave for 5 minutes before mixing in the candied peel.
Spread half of the mixture evenly on a buttered tray.  Roll out your marzipan and try to fit a single layer of it on top of the mixture.  Top it off with the remaining bread-mixture.  Sprinkle flaked almonds.
Bake for one hour.  

2 comments:

  1. this actually looks do yummy! where did u find matcha powder? ive never tried it in food before :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. you can get it online! oh it's so delicious!

    ReplyDelete

 
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