Pain au chocolat pudding with pears and peanut butter

Portion size: Serves 8-10
Hands-on time 20 min. Cooking time 35 min
Difficulty: easy

Vegetarian

Recipe by: James Rich

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Turn everyone’s favourite breakfast pastry into this pain au chocolat pudding. Add juicy pears and a swirl of peanut butter for one incredible pud. Recipe from Orchard: Over 70 Sweet and Savoury Recipes from the English Countryside by James Rich (Hardie Grant, £22) Photography ©Laura Edwards.

Fancy a baking challenge? Try making pain au chocolat from scratch.

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Ingredients

125g salted butter, plus extra for greasing
300ml double cream
200ml whole milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tbsp smooth peanut butter
4 medium free-range eggs
50g caster sugar
8 pains au chocolat
4 conference pears, peeled, cored and sliced lengthways
Demerara sugar for sprinkling
Cream or ice cream to serve

You’ll also need

30cm x 20cm high-sided baking dish

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Method

Heat the oven to 180°C fan/gas 6 and grease the baking dish. In a pan, mix the butter, cream, milk, vanilla bean paste and peanut butter, then slowly bring to the boil, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 3-4 minutes until the mixture starts to thicken.
Meanwhile, beat the eggs and sugar in a stand mixer (or using a an electric hand mixer) until frothy. With the motor running, slowly pour the heated cream mix into the egg mix, beating the whole time. Make sure the cream has cooled slightly; you want to temper the egg, not scramble it.
Arrange the pains au chocolat in the prepared dish. You want them to be standing chocolate-ends up and wedged in fairly snugly. Wedge the pear slices in and around the pains au chocolat. Pour the custard over the dish, sprinkle the top with demerara sugar and bake for 35 minutes until nicely browned and the custard has set. Cover with foil for the first 20 minutes to prevent burning the pains au chocolat before uncovering for the last 15 minutes. Leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving with cream or ice cream.
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