ngredients (serves eight-ten sweet-toothed people)
1. 10 slices of stale bread
2. ¼ lb (100 g) unsalted butter (and some extra for buttering the baking dish)
3. Oil for frying
4. ¾ cup (200 ml) full cream milk
5. ¾ cup (200 ml) double/whipping cream
6. 2 cups (500 ml) double cream
7. Sugar syrup
8. ¾ cup (200 ml) water
9. 1 ¼ cup (330 g) sugar
10. Seeds from 4-5 cardamom pods
11. 2 generous pinches of saffron
12. Garnish
13. ½ cup (65 g slivered) slivered almonds
14. ½ cup (65 g) chopped pistachios
Method
1. 10 slices of stale bread
2. ¼ lb (100 g) unsalted butter (and some extra for buttering the baking dish)
3. Oil for frying
4. ¾ cup (200 ml) full cream milk
5. ¾ cup (200 ml) double/whipping cream
6. 2 cups (500 ml) double cream
7. Sugar syrup
8. ¾ cup (200 ml) water
9. 1 ¼ cup (330 g) sugar
10. Seeds from 4-5 cardamom pods
11. 2 generous pinches of saffron
12. Garnish
13. ½ cup (65 g slivered) slivered almonds
14. ½ cup (65 g) chopped pistachios
Method
- Lightly grease a two-quart (two-litre) baking dish and set aside.
- Cut off the edges of the bread and slice in half on the diagonal.
- Place a frying pan on medium heat and generously smear with some butter and oil (approximately two tbsp) and fry the bread slices till lightly toasted on both sides. (Repeat this step until the whole batch is done.)
- Transfer the fried bread pieces into a single layer in your baking dish; reserve any extra pieces.
- In a jug, stir together, milk and double cream. Slowly pour over the bread pieces.
- While the bread pieces are soaking up the creamy liquid, combine water, sugar, cardamom seeds and saffron in a saucepan and boil over high heat.
- When the sugar mixture starts changing colour to deep amber and slightly thickens, take off heat (will take approximately be five-seven minutes to thicken.)
- Pour half of the extra double cream (500 ml) on the bread slices followed by the sugar syrup.
- If left with additional pieces of bread add more layers to the baking dish by pouring in the rest of the milk-cream mixture and waiting for the bread to absorb the liquid, followed by the remaining double cream and sugar syrup.
- Let the bread mixture sit on the counter for 20 minutes before placing it in a pre-heated 180c (350-F) oven.
- Bake for 35 minutes until the bread is puffed up, glowing in the colours of saffron and caramelised sugar and ever so creamily soft. Garnish with nuts just before serving.
