I like hotcross buns. Very much. I was spoiled by a bulk dose of fancy Marks and Spencer ones. They were gone all too fast. I tried to relive them with some sad looking ones from Tesco. They were sad. I usually have them toasted with too much butter but not even heat and cholesterol could salvage these mingers. They were going stale in the breadbin but in this current climate of being better people I couldn’t just throw them out. So I jazzed them up. Jazzed them up a treat. I also had a manky orange to hand.

Orange scented hotcross bun bread and butter pudding. Too much? A lot of words but no. If you want to follow my lead I’d say you need to get to the shops quick smart before the last of the hotcross buns are gone till next year.

Weird. I did the what I’m making bit before the inane monologue.

Worry not.

I think I’m going to lay a patio such is my new obsession with my (our) garden and the mania of lockdown. I can’t see where it is most going to go wrong so I’m happy with that as a starting position.

Apart from that the boys are deadly, they now clean up the kitchen, playroom and sitting room after dinner without being asked. And they seem to enjoy it. I don’t know where they get it from but I like it.

I had made a sticky toffee cake thing ages ago and froze it, defrosting it tonight and serving it with a fresh batch of butterscotch sauce. I also made roast chicken with gravy. Tonight could have ended so badly.

So to dessert.

This recipe is big. Based on the beauty that was my Nutella bread and butter pudding. I made two bowls of it, one for us (4.5 people) and one for the folks who had two portions each in one sitting before being given a pavlova and a homemade jaffa loaf. Oink oink much…

Egg yolks                    4

Eggs                             2

Light muscavado      100g

Whole milk                300g

Cream                          320g

Manky orange            1

Hot cross buns           5

Enough butter for buttering your buns, 50g?

Demerera sugar for sprinkling over the top

And yes the liquids are in grams. I know everyone says baking is a science. Kind of is. Kind of isn’t. For my level of precision grams will do for everything and means I don’t have to wash a jug.

Get one large or two small overproof dishes. Now I think of it I’d say this is definitely freezeable. Freeze it after you’ve let the custard soak into the buns but before you bake it. Then on the other side, let it defrost in the fridge from the night before you want it and bake it at 170 for 40mins or till the centre stops wobbling madly.

We need to make it first.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Crack your eggs and yolks into a large bowl, preferably with a pouring bit.

Weigh in the muscavado and whisk to combine.

Measure your cream and milk into a saucepan.

Peel a few nice lengths of the manky orange peel and throw them into the cream and then put the whole orange in too. Then realise you should have cut it in half, take it out, cut it in half and put it back into the cream.

Place the saucepan on a medium heat and bring to just about a boil. Remove it from the heat and let it infuse while you do the slicing and buttering.

Slice each of the buns into about 6 slices. Slice is not a nice word.

Butter each piece on one side.

Arrange them in your bowls. I actually tried to make mine look pretty for absolutely no reason. Not one of my 4 men noticed and I don’t think I even did when it came time to eat.

Remove all the orange bits from the milky cream and then pour it over the eggs while you try to whisk them. The milk mix should still be pretty warm but not scaldy hot.

Now. Pour the lovely custard over the pointlessly attractive buns and leave to stand so the buns can soak the custard up before baking. Let’s say 15mins.

Sprinkle some demerara sugar over the top to give a nice little crunch, remembering to eat it in a different room to me.

Now either pop it in the oven or in the freezer (wrapper in clingfilm). Should have kept the second one. Saved my parents from themselves.

Anyway. 30mins at 180 should have it baked. It’ll still have a slight quiver in the middle ideally. Again let it stand for a few minutes so you don’t burn the mouth off yourself and serve with icecream to mitigate the injury.