Mini Brioche Muffins

A while ago, Beth, one of my good friends, asked if I could make her bread and butter pudding one day, as it's one of her favourite desserts. It's a traditional English dish, and not something I've ever tasted before - my only memory of it is from school dinners, where I'd look at it warily and go for something else instead. The whole concept of bread soaked in milk and egg just seemed odd to me.

But when I was given Beth as my Secret Santa recently, I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to finally make her wish come true! (Well, something like that)

Bread and butter pudding is not, as you can imagine, something you can easily wrap up (especially if you make the custard as well!), so I decide to veer off course to create something more worthy of a gift.

First off, I got some chocolate brioche because, well, white bread is just not special enough. I cubed it up and left it to dry out and harden overnight. Day-old/dried out bread is best to use, otherwise there will be too much moisture and it won't go nice and crispy when you bake it. And when you come to soak the bread in the milk also, the cubed pieces won't go all soggy and pathetic on you.

The final touch was to add cranberries, instead of raisins (which you normally get in bread and butter pudding) to add an extra bit of Christmas cheer!

Mini Brioche Muffins

Makes 48 mini muffins or 24 cupcake size:

(I made 24 mini muffins and 12 cupcakes!)

1) Put the dry brioche cubes in a large mixing bowl. Add the milk and leave to sit for 10 minutes.

2) Beat the eggs with the remaining ingredients apart from the cranberries.

3) Stir the mixture into the brioche, then carefully mix in the cranberries.

4) Spoon into a lined mini muffin tray and bake at 200 degrees C for 15 minutes until brown.

If you wanted to make cupcake sized ones instead, bake at 180 degrees C for about 20 minutes until brown.

More Hungry Jenny cakes here.