Rhubarb, Raspberry & Dark Chocolate Bread & Butter Pudding Cake | The Brick Kitchen (2024)

Rhubarb, Raspberry & Dark Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding cake – rich brioche pudding layered with roasted rhubarb, flaked almonds & dark chocolate chunks. Top with vanilla bean custard for a festive dessert! Jump to Recipe

As I type this, I’m sitting on a fold out camping chair with the sun beating down, under a big outdoor umbrella and a wide brimmed straw hat. I burn easily – a jandal tan line is already emerging. But I’m not camping, or looking out at the ocean, or at a barbecue – the view is of a busy suburban street and the chair is on the footpath. Morning traffic crawls past. Red and green buckets line the fences, and even though I’ve just swept the sidewalk, it feels like it is already covered in a carpet of pine-needles again. It’s a Tuesday, so this job is quiet – a few people have stopped by to choose their Christmas tree, and I’ve sold a few dozen homemade fruit mince tarts to bypassers. I wonder sometimes if I look in any way festive to people driving by: face hidden by my hat brim, typing away madly on a laptop, and occasionally donning long sleeves through the heat – scratchy pine tree needles give me a wicked rash!

We get a mix of buyers: my favourite are the families with young children who are dead set on finding a Christmas tree, no matter how pretty it is. They can’t wait to decorate it, and their parents are focused on getting them home as quickly as possible – they’re not picky. The people on the opposite end of the spectrum are the worst: we have competition down the road, and yesterday someone drove back and forth between the 2 tree sellers about 5 times before finally making a decision. I’m not exaggerating. Let’s be honest, once a tree is covered in baubles and fairy lights, you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart. It’s a study in human nature – and I think I’d rather be like the easy going folk who make Christmas tree shopping a breeze, than the picky, anxious, fussy people who turn it into an nightmare ordeal in an almost certainly fruitless search for perfection.

At least it’s sunny: I’ve done this for a the past few summers, and sometimes the chair is in the garage as rain buckets down while I’m soaked to the skin from lifting sodden trees. On the other hand, the sun makes the trees droop and gives them a forlorn appearance by late afternoon – so there are downsides to both. It’s a very different job to cafe baking bulk doughnuts last year and accidentally burning huge and expensive batches of biscotti– much cruisier, really. I just keep reminding myself how much I’m saving for future brunch trips and holidays next year!

Last week I catered a dinner for 12 with chermoula-rubbed butterflied lamb cooked on the barbecue, a lentil pomegranate salad, smoky babaganoush and homemade mottled turkish pideto mop up bowls of the smoothest hummus I’ve ever made. The secret was to make it properly – and by that I mean to soak and boil the chickpeas with baking soda, rather than the quicker option straight from a can. Thank you, Ottolenghi!

With all that going on, it was a relief to have dessert prepared ahead time with this raspberry, rhubarb & dark chocolate bread & butter pudding cake. It’s a step-up from your traditional casserole pan of pudding, and would make an ideal Christmas day dessert made the night before. Brioche slices (I made my own, but you could buy it) are layered up in a cake tin along with roasted rhubarb, tart raspberries, dark chocolate chunks and almond meal. It’s all soaked in a rich, eggy custard, and then baked until slightly puffy, springy and golden. When cut into, pale pudding is broken up with wavy lines of melted chocolate and raspberries, and the enriched brioche gives a lovely creamy texture, contrasted with the crunchy flaked almond & raspberry topping. Drizzled with a vanilla bean custard, it’s heavenly.

Cook’s notes:

• You need a very tight springform cake tin – mine leaks a little, so I lined it with baking paper that extends underneath the springform rim for a tighter seal, then wrapped the bottom of the tin with foil to catchy any extra drips.
• Brioche is the best bread to use – white bread risks a gluey texture. Make your own, or buy it.
• It’s a big cake , serving 10-15 easily with generous slices.
• Make or buy a vanilla custard, but it is very easy to make a much-better-than-storebought custard ahead of time and keep in the fridge (1-2 days) until ready to use.