Gordon Ramsay's Buttered Baguette Bread Pudding: The Yummiest Recipe Ever

INGREDIENTS:

50g (1/4 c. or 1.8 oz.) butter, softened
½ large French stick (about 150g or 5.3 oz., thinly sliced)
60g (1/2c. works) sultanas (golden raisins) or dried cranberries, or a mixture of both
2 large free-range egg yolks
2 large free-range eggs
40g (1/3 c.) caster (superfine or extra fine) sugar
300ml (1 1/3 c. or 10.25 oz) double cream
300ml milk (1 1/3 c. or 10.25 oz)
4 tbsp Baileys cream liqueur, or more to taste
Demerara (raw)sugar, to sprinkle.
3 tbsp apricot jam

PREPARATION:
1. Use a large knob of the butter to grease the sides of a 1.5 litre shallow ovenproof dish. Spread the bread slices with the remaining butter. Arrange the bread in the dish in overlapping layers, sprinkling the dried fruit between.

2. Beat the egg yolks, whole eggs and sugar together in a large bowl until creamy, then beat in the cream, milk and Baileys. Slowly pour this mixture over the bread.

3. Press the bread slices down gently with your fingers so they are completely submerged.

4. Leave to stand for about 20 minutes to allow the bread to soak up the custard. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.

5. Stand the dish in a roasting tin and surround with boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the dish. (A bain-marie is used to avoid overheating the custard, which otherwise might curdle.) Sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden. Shortly before this time is up, warm the apricot jam until runny.

6. Dab this glaze over the surface of the pudding and leave to stand for 15 minutes before serving. The custard will continue to cook and firm up during this time. Trickle a little more Baileys over each portion to serve if you like.

PREP/COOK
INFORMATION:

Prep time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Serves: 6

Source: Just Desserts Gordon Ramsay

1. Use the highest grade butter you can find. I use Land O'Lakes usually, but when I go all out, I splurge on Plugra
2. Caster sugar is just superfine (NOT POWDERED) sugar. You can find it in the baking goods section near other sugar, flour, etc.
3. Pick up a fresh baguette that tastes good to you plain. I use the ones from our local Publix; either two of the thin ones or one regular size one
4. We don't have double cream in our area. I used heavy cream and that worked just great!
5. Get free range or very high quality eggs - it DOES make a difference.
6. Sultanas are just raisins made from green grapes. I used Golden Raisins instead; not sure if those are quite the same, but they worked well with the cranberries. If you want to use apples, peaches, or another wetter fruit, reduce the cream a bit
7. I left out the Bailey's and used about 2TBSP vanilla. I also added nutmeg because this has a flavor much like a wonderfully rich egg custard and about 1/2 tsp nutmeg is a nice touch.
8. I recommend the apricot jam highly. I don't normally care for it but was very pleasantly surprised!
9. Demerara sugar - I bought Sugar in the Raw at the grocery store (sugar and flour section) and sprinkled that on. It gives a nice crunch to the top without making it overly sweet. Yum!

The first time I made this recipe, I made it EXACTLY (except for the double cream) his way, then later made variations.
I make sure that some edge pieces of baguette are sticking out here and there. They get all crunchy buttery almost like fried, sweet bread and it makes a nice sort of "crust" for the pudding.
This recipe can be sliced like bread pudding, but it's far moister and custardier than the bread pudding my grandmother always made. I like mine firmer, so I make the recipe a little bigger by adding just a bit more bread - about 1/8-1/4 loaf.