Black Butler: Currant and Berry Summer Pudding

Summer Pudding is one of those deceptive dishes that make you look like a kitchen genius. It's also one of those recipes you don't have to be too exact about, which it nice when you're working with seasonal fruits.

Ingredients:

• Challah or Brioche
• 5 cups assorted berries
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 TBS lemon zest
• 1/2 cup berry liquor
• Whipped cream (optional)

This is currant summer pudding, so I used about 1 1/2 cups currant, 1 1/2 cup blue berries, 1 cup raspberries, and 1 cup blackberries. But really you can use any combination you want, you could also used sliced cherries, huckleberries, or really any other berry you can think of (non-poisonous of course).  Toss them all in a largeish bowl with lemon zest, sugar, and berry liquor.  Mix until very "juicy".

 

I used Bols Blackberry Liqueur, but any berry liqueur is fine. Do not use flavored Vodka, if you do the alcohol taste will be way too intense. You could also use berry juice in place of liquor, if you want to be boring.

Cut bread into thin crust-less slices and generously line your bowl with them. I used challah because I couldn't find brioche, but any dense eggy bread will do. You'll want to remove the crusts which is why I recommend against challah, it's such a weird shape it's difficult to remove the crust evenly. Once you've lined your bowl, leaving no openings scoop you're berries into it and then cover with more bread.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and compress the hell out of that sucker. This will ensure that the whole thing won't just fall apart on you when you take it out later.

I used a large bag of rice, it worked quite well.

You'll want to refrigerate and let it sit overnight, but at least 7 hours, the longer the better really, this will allow the bread to become more saturated. Once it's sat for a significant amount of time run a knife around the edges, place a plate on top, turn over, and maybe hit it a bit until separated.

You know what this mostly berries dish needs? More berries on top!

Oh yeah!

Once cut it actually still holds it's shape fairly well, the bread didn't cut as nicely as I'd hoped, but that may have been because I didn't let it sit as long as I should have.

It's fantastic with cream.