Now let’s cook
Pudding. Baursaks left over after guests go into the dish in place of bread. A baursak is dough fried in oil, and in a Kazakh home it is the first treat served to every guest.
Ingredients
- 300 g day-old baursaksfried in oil the day before, each cut in half
- 50 g buttermade from cow’s milk
- 75 g raisinsdried grapes
- 250 ml whole milkcow’s milk, heated together with the cream
- 300 ml whipping creamabout 33% fat, heated together with the milk
- 3 eggslarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- 1 egg yolkfrom a large egg, about 17 g
- 40 g sugarwhite granulated sugar
- 6 g vanilla podsplit lengthways, the seeds scraped out, then heated in the milk and cream
Method
Heat the oven to 180 °C, fan off. Grease a baking dish of about 20 × 25 cm with a little of the butter.
Split the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the seeds and put them with the pod into a saucepan with the milk and the cream. Heat to just below boiling.
Whisk the eggs, the yolk and the sugar in a separate bowl. Pour in the warm milk mixture slowly, stirring all the time, until smooth. Take out the vanilla pod. Do not taste the custard before it is baked: it has raw yolks in it.
Cut the baursaks in half: they need no trimming. Spread the cut sides with the rest of the soft butter.
Lay half of the baursaks in the dish, cut side up and slightly overlapping, and scatter half of the raisins over them. Put the remaining baursaks on top and scatter the rest of the raisins.
Pour the custard over the baursaks, press them down lightly and leave to soak for at least 30 minutes.
Bake for 35–40 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the pudding has puffed up.
Check the centre of the pudding with a thermometer: it should read at least 74 °C. If it is lower, keep baking and check again every 10 minutes until it reads 74 °C. Serve the pudding warm.
