Gramercy Tavern Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding: if at first you don't succeed....

So, I decided to try my hand at the delectable Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding at the Gramercy Tavern, recipe here, courtesy of their amazing pastry chef Nancy Olson.

Quite scared that if I can make this pudding even half as well as the chefs at the Gramercy I'll be making it all the time...

It's relatively simple.  Get a brioche loaf - M&S do this nice one:

Chop the crusts off, and chop it into little squares:

Then there's a slightly complicated bit where you have to add x to y, then y to x, then xy to z and z to xy...  I should have roped in a friend at this point, as you need to add and whisk simultaneously, which is easier when one person holds the bowl and one whisks...however, given that I decided to make it in the middle of the night, this was easier said than done.    (x = a mix of eggs and milk, y = hot milk, cream, vanilla and sugar, z = molten chocolate.)

The logical part of my brain is saying 'I'm sure if you just added x to y, then y to z, it would work out exactly the same' but the paranoid, anxious part of my brain (98%) is saying 'if you don't do exactly what Nancy Olson says, the world will end.'  Call me Chicken Licken.

Anyway, do what Nancy says, or else, and then pour that over the brioche, smush it a bit, then add chunks of chocolate.

This photo speaks volumes about what a slovenly cook I am.  Really, those chunks should be a third of the size, and cut with a knife but I just could not be bothered to do it neatly.  Not least because x to y to x to z had left my kitchen counter with various smudges of egg and cream and chocolate that needed wiping up.  Anyway on Sunday I shall show and tell regarding what it's like when you actually eat it....

postscript: so by the time I put it in the oven, we had drunk 9 bottles of wine between 7 of us.  The photos are terrible:

and do it no justice whatsoever.  Also, I messed up on my US conversions and had a bit too little cream to milk and not quite enough brioche, so there was too much sauce - however it tasted amazing.  Am going to remake next weekend on a smaller scale and repost the finished product.

POSTSCRIPT - ROUND TWO - A TRIUMPH!

OMG, my friends, OMG.  Made it TWICE this weekend, this time doing the maths properly.  It was totally amazing.  I mean, it's brioche smothered in chocolate custard, with a bit of molten chocolate on top - what is not to love about that?

But still...  Anyway, as I was making it for Mother's Day I invested in posh chocolate chips - well, Dr. Oetker posh, as opposed to hacked chunks.

Alors, pre-oven comme ca:

Post oven it rises beautifully:

And the texture, when you use enough proper double cream, is just so utterly squidgy, light and perfect.

Magnificent served with this perennial favourite:

and, er, double cream too...