Ruby Pudding

I love all things red. I love red cars, red sunsets and red flowers. My house (and my kitchen) is full of red things. I wear red lipstick and shoes, I drink my tea from a red cup and wear red scarves to protect me from the cold. Hell, I even got married in red!! My love of red definitely extends to food of the same hue - cranberries, chillies, capsicums, tomatoes, beetroot - all gorgeous. Well today's recipe is inspired by three of my favourite red fruits - rhubarb, raspberries and strawberries. I wanted to create an easy pudding based on what I had in the fridge and the pantry, using those beautiful red fruits as the stars of the dish.

The result was my own version of what is pretty much a bread and butter style pudding - but made special by the beautiful red fruit, a handful of macadamias left over from making something or other and a touch of my Nanna Ethel's sublime homemade apricot jam. If you don't have jam lovingly made by your Nan, then use a supermarket brand if you need to. I think you could easily adapt this recipe to use not just bread, but leftover croissants or brioche, as well as using other fruit or nuts.

Anyway, here is what I came up with - a dessert I have named  Ruby Pudding. I also took the opportunity to serve the pudding on my lovely vintage green patterned plates that I found in a flea market in Paris, while I was on my honeymoon recently. As well as enjoying the delicious pudding, I was reminded of a gorgeous day spent  with Andrew, fossicking through the french market looking for treasures, stopping for cafe au lait and trying out my dodgy french on the antique dealers. I came home with those green  plates, some old silver, an antique pastry cutter and beautiful tapestry fabric. A beautiful day. Enough memories - dessert time!

Ruby Pudding - straight out of the oven

Served on my French flea market plates

- with lashings of fresh cream.

You will need: 300ml cream, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, 2 cups sugar, yolk of 5 eggs, 1 whole egg, 2 tablespoons apricot jam, about 10 slices white bread (a day or two old is fine), 1 cup raspberries (I used frozen ones), 4 or 5 stalks of rhubarb, 2 punnets strawberries chopped into pieces, about 150g butter, 1 tablespoon chopped macadamia nuts.

Method: Preheat the oven to 200C. Trim all of the leaves off the rhubarb and cut into 5cm pieces. Place on a tray lined with baking paper and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the over and sprinkle over ¼ cup sugar. Return to then oven for 5 minutes. Take the rhubarb out again and add the chopped strawberries and sprinkle with another ¼ cup sugar. Return the tray to the oven and cook for another 5-10 minutes, or until the rhubarb is just soft. Try not to mush up the fruit too much – you want it to stay in quite chunky pieces.

In a mixing bowl, combine the cream, milk, vanilla, 1 cup sugar, egg yolks and whole egg. Whisk together until well combined. Set aside.

Butter the slices of bread on both sides. Line a deep dish with one layer of bread. Add some of the rhubarb/strawberry mixture and a few raspberries. Sprinkle with some of the remaining sugar. Repeat until you have used all of the ingredients, ending with a layer of bread on the top.

Heat the apricot jam and brush this over the top of the bread. Sprinkle over the macadamia nuts. Bake at 200C for about 45-50mins until golden. Allow the pudding to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Serve with freshly whipped cream.