Summer Pudding!

Potentially my most praised bake to date, this Summer Pudding, recipe courtesy of Paul Hollywood, consists of a White Chocolate and Raspberry Sourdough case bursting with a mixed berry and Chambord filling! A winning combination, so let's get into it!  

I struggled to get a photo of
this Summer Pudding so much! 

A lot of love goes into preparing this pudding, and the first step is bake a loaf of the White Chocolate and Raspberry Sourdough, which in itself requires a sourdough starter preparing first! To prepare the starter, strong white flour, water, and diced green grapes are combined in a bowl and left for approximately two days to become active. Once active and bubbly, half of the mixture is discarded and refreshed with more flour and water. After an additional 24 hours, the yeast in the sourdough starter are ready to go. 

To prepare the the sourdough, strong white flour, the sourdough starter, salt and water are combined in a bowl, kneaded, and then left to rise in an oiled boil for approximately four hours, or until doubled in size. The dough is turned out, white chocolate chips and fresh raspberries are kneaded in, and the dough is left to proof once more in a banneton for another four hours, or again until doubled in size. The sourdough takes a lot of attention and proofing, but I've made quite a few sourdough loaves and I'm relatively confident now! 

The sourdough loaf ready for 
the oven! 

Once doubled in size, the loaf is very gently turned out onto a baking sheet, and baked until risen and golden brown! This Summer Pudding works better with staler bread, so I sliced up the freshly baked loaf and left it out overnight. 

The baked loaf! 

With the loaf ready, the next stage is to prepare the filling for the summer pudding, by simply combining Chambord, sugar, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries in a pan, and heating until the berries have released their juices and the liquid has condensed slightly. A nice and easy pudding filling, what's not to like! 

After cutting the crusts of the bread, the slices can be used to line a pudding basin. Once lined, the filling is poured in, and the remaining bread is pressed on top to seal. The pudding is then wrapped in cling film, and something relatively heavy is placed on top. It is then left to chill in the fridge overnight to encourage the pudding to seal and the bread to absorb the juices of the filling.  

The lined pudding basin.

After turning out the pudding and brushing the outside with juice that I'd previously reserved, the final step was to prepare the White Chocolate and Mascarpone Cream to accompany the pudding, by simply combining melted white chocolate, double cream, mascarpone, and icing sugar! This cream was the perfect combination for the Summer Pudding! 

Not to toot my own horn but I've had some amazing feedback from this dessert from everyone who tried! I didn't let the bread grow quite as stale as I probably should, meaning it didn't quite soak the juices all the way through the case. Brushing the outside of the pudding with spare juice almost completely fixed this though. An absolute win in my book! 

Gibby x