A month or so ago I received a high tea cookbook from the PR company for Dilmah Tea. Along with the book came an invitation to submit a recipe for their contest. The contest is for recipes where Dilmah tea is used in some way, either a recipe or a pairing.
I flipped through the book and everything looked so beautiful and there were exquisite dishes incorporating tea leaves, tea or infusions. Nothing popped into my head until I made a loaf of brioche bread last week.
A year or so ago I was at the weekly cooking class that I go to in order to chat with other food loving women (usually all women) every Friday morning and one day my friend Iris who teaches the classes did a white chocolate bread pudding with raspberries. I wondered, could I infuse tea in the cream before making the custard?
Well, the answer is yes. Yes, indeed you can.
Dilmah has a rose petal and vanilla tea that has the most beautiful aroma I’ve smelled. I was almost like Pepe LePew following a scent. I knew from the first whiff that I was going to give it a try.
I heated the cream to just under boiling 90C (194F) and popped two tea bags in the cream and set it aside to cool. When it was at room temperature I squeezed out the tea bags and used the cream as you’d normally do when making custard.
Can I say again, how wonderful this smelled? Still, smelling and tasting were two different things and it needed to “taste” tea in order for it to be considered by the contest.
After slicing and buttering the brioche and placing it in a buttered pan, I poured over the white chocolate custard and tumbled in some frozen raspberries. I figured raspberries being red might go well with the rose petal theme. Plus, I love raspberries.
As I slid it into the oven and poured water halfway up the side of the dish I thought, “Please work.” I did this because I had NO plan B for my entry.
50 minutes later I checked the oven and it was nearly done – and lightly golden brown when I took it out of the oven. When it had cooled, I took a photo of it and then plated and photographed a dish of it. THEN I called John down and said, “Take a bite and tell me what you taste?”
“Hmmm, vanilla and something else – sort of rosy,” he said.
I kissed him and said he was really good! Then I explained why I asked. At first I didn’t notice but he kept eating as we were talking. John usually doesn’t like desserts and he has always said he hated bread pudding, so why was he still eating?
“This is really good, Maureen. I don’t like bread pudding and I can’t put it down.”
So, I think I’ll submit it.
- 2 bags Dilmah Rose with Vanilla Exceptional Tea (or your favourite flavour)
- 200 grams white chocolate
- 1½ cups (375 mls) cream
- 3 eggs
- ¼ cup caster/superfine sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 loaf brioche bread cut into slices (my dish didn't hold a whole loaf)
- 50 (3½ tbs) grams softened butter
- 100 grams (3/4 cup) fresh (or frozen) raspberries (I used frozen)
- 1 tbs demerara or raw sugar
- Icing sugar for dusting
- Hours before or overnight, bring cream to nearly boiling and place the two tea bags in the cream. Set aside to cool. When cool squeeze the bags and toss. Use or store the cream until needed.
- Preheat oven to 160°C/320F
- Grease ovenproof dish with butter
- Heat chocolate and cream over low heat, stirring until melted and smooth
- In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla until well combined.
- Spread bread with softened butter and place in casserole dish
- Combine egg mixture and chocolate mixture and pour over bread
- Add raspberries on top
- Sprinkle with demerara (or raw) sugar
- Let stand for ten minutes for the bread to soak up the custard
- Place in the oven in a water bath halfway up the side of the casserole dish and bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown and just set
- Dust with icing sugar before serving warm