Recipes: Three Blue Ducks orange and chocolate bread and butter pudding

Bread and butter pudding is a win-win dessert – an awesome, comforting winter treat plus a great way to use up stale bread.

We've revved it up with chocolate and burnt orange, but try it with chopped dates and walnuts, poached pears and almonds, or just flavoured with a simple spice.

It's hard to believe until you taste it, but chocolate and fennel are a top match. Don't throw away fennel tops, include them for incredible flavour. If making ice-cream is too much, dollop some thick cream on top. Done.

Orange and chocolate bread and butter pudding

1 orange

1 tbsp brown sugar

40g butter, room temperature

1 vanilla pod, split lengthways, seeds scraped

6 slices sourdough bread

4 eggs

30g castor sugar

120g cooking chocolate buttons (70 per cent cocoa)

200ml cream

200ml milk

Preheat the oven to 190C fan-forced (220C conventional). Thinly slice the orange, lay the slices on a baking tray, sprinkle with brown sugar and bake for 10 minutes to caramelise the sugar and slightly burn the orange. Turn the oven down to 160C (180C conventional). Beat the butter to soften it and mix in the vanilla seeds. Grease a 20-centimetre round pan with the butter, spread remaining butter on the bread and cut each slice in half. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until combined and add half the chocolate buttons. In a small saucepan, heat the cream, milk and scraped vanilla pod to 90C or just under the boil. Pour it over the egg and chocolate mix. Stir to combine and melt the chocolate then strain. Fill the prepared pan with layers of bread, burnt orange slices and whole chocolate buttons, finishing with some orange slices and chocolate buttons on top. For each layer, pour some chocolate milk over the top and finish by pouring any remaining milk over the last layer. Set aside for 15 minutes for the bread to soak up the milk, then bake for 25-30 minutes at 160C. The pudding should still have a slight wobble when cooked. Serve hot with ice-cream.

Serves 4

Fennel ice-cream

8 yolks

180g castor sugar

200g chopped fennel including tops

1 tbsp roasted fennel seeds

475ml milk

475ml cream

60ml liquid glucose

20ml pernod

In a large bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar. Put the fennel, seeds, milk, cream, glucose and pernod in a saucepan, bring almost to the boil then remove from heat leave to infuse for one hour. Return to the boil, strain into a large jug, then pour and whisk into the yolks. Return the mix to the saucepan and heat gently while stirring until it thickens slightly and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Strain into a bowl, chill then churn in an ice-cream machine.

Makes 1.2 litres