Cardamom and orange pain perduwithbakedrhubarb

Prep time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Serves 6

A lovely brunch or weekend breakfast dish. Make sure to soak the bread for long enough to absorb the flavours in the custard, but not so long that it falls apart. This makes more rhubarb than you need, but can there ever be ‘too much rhubarb’ in the fridge? Have it on porridge, with rice pudding and with yogurt.

INGREDIENTS For the rhubarb

– 1kg rhubarb

– 185g caster sugar – finely grated zest of ½ orange, plus 4 tbsp juice

For the pain perdu

– 115ml double cream – 115ml whole milk – juice and finely grated zest of ½ large orange

– 4 tbsp caster sugar – 6 cardamom pods

– 7 medium eggs, plus

1 egg yolk

– 9 slices of soft white

bread or brioche

– 75g unsalted butter

(you made need more)

To serve

– ½ large orange – icing sugar – crème fraîche

METHOD

Heat the oven to 180C / 170C fan/gas mark 4.

Trim the rhubarb and cut it into 3cm lengths. Put this in a large ovenproof dish with the sugar, zest and juice. Cover tightly with a double layer of foil and bake for 20-30 minutes. How long this takes depends on the thickness of the rhubarb, so keep an eye on it. You want rhubarb pieces that are intact and holding their shape, but tender. Leave to cool, then chill if you want to.

Heat the oven to 150C / 140C fan/gas mark 2.

For the pain perdu, mix the cream, milk, orange juice, zest and sugar together in a saucepan. Crack the cardamom pods so the seeds fall out and pound the seeds with a mortar and pestle. Add to the liquid in the pan. Heat this to just under boiling then leave for 40 minutes or so. The cardamom and zest will infuse the milk.

Pour the milk mixture into a broad dish and add the eggs. Whisk this all together. Halve the bread slices, either diagonally or horizontally. Get a large frying pan out and have the butter by the hob.

Dip the bread, about six pieces at a time, into the egg mixture. Soak it on one side, then turn the pieces over. How long you need to soak them for depends on the thickness and texture of the bread. Brioche sucks up egg and milk quite quickly. The pieces should be soaked until they have absorbed a lot of the mixture, but they shouldn’t be so saturated that they fall apart.

As you soak the bread, melt some of the butter in the frying pan. Gradually fry the bread – 4-6 pieces at a time

– on both sides. They should be golden, and the egg mixture should be cooked right through to the centre of each piece. Be careful not to burn the butter and add more as you need it. As you cook each batch of bread, transfer it to a dish and put in the oven to keep warm.

When you’ve fried all the bread, divide it between six plates, stacking three pieces on each. Squeeze some fresh orange juice over the pain perdu and sift some icing sugar on top. Serve with the rhubarb – it can either go on top or on the side – and a dollop of crème fraîche.