Cappucchino and Chocolate Bliss

My friend from Auckland came down to stay with me the other weekend. She's an avid photographer like myself but it couldn't have been very good for her. Firstly, my camera was up in Auckland getting fixed. Secondly I'm in plaster and couldn't get around much, and thirdly, the weather was very dicey!

However, despite that we drove up to the Nelson Lakes. I took my old Canon Powershot Pro1, and made Evelyn park adjacent to the lake so I could just roll the window down and take photos. Evelyn got out and walked around (lucky thing!). There were only so many of the lake photos I could take, and every time I wound down the window, thousands of sandflies would come inside the car. So my time was spent killing them all. I have lovely black splodges all over the inside windows of the car now!

None of my photos with the Powershot were anything to write home about.  In fact I deleted them all. We drove up to the top of Mt Robert so Evelyn could get the photos of the view down the valley. I got her to park adjacent to the view again while she got out and had a wander.; Again, none of my photos were any good.

Afterwards, we went and had lunch at the cafe at St Arnaud. We shared a plate of hot chips, and a cake.  The chips were the best I've ever had, and the cake was to die for. It was so nice that I googled it and found the recipe.  Fully recommend it and suggest you have a go at making it. I know I will be as soon as I'm out of plaster...

Cappucchino Bread and Butter Pudding....

Ingredients (serves 8)

1 large brioche loaf, thinly sliced
180g unsalted butter, softened
350g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
10 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
100ml strong espresso coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract
700ml cream
200ml full-cream milk
Icing sugar, to dust
Warm chocolate sauce, to serve and Plain Yoghurt.

Method
Spread the brioche slices with 150g of butter. Alternate layers of brioche with 200g of the chocolate in a greased 25cm round spring-form pan.

Whisk together the eggs, sugar, coffee, vanilla, 600ml of cream and the milk in a bowl until combined. Strain through a sieve over the brioche and chocolate and set aside for 1 hour to allow the liquid to be absorbed
.
Preheat the oven to 150°C.

Place cake pan on a flat baking tray and bake for 1 1/4 hours until cooked through. Set aside to cool.

To make the chocolate sauce, place the remaining butter, chocolate and cream in a bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water until butter and chocolate have melted, then stir gently to combine.

Remove collar from cake pan, dust cake with icing sugar and serve with the chocolate sauce and some plain yoghurt.